After winning the People’s Choice Documentary Award at the Toronto Film Festival last month, Barry Avrich’s feature documentary, “The Road oter Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” was released theatrically at 81 cinemas in North America on Friday. This release qualifies Doc for Oscar considerations.
Following his grandfather, the document, which retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, rescued his family from Hamas terrorists during the October 7, 2023 massacre, earning a considerable amount of coverage when TIFF pulled the film from the lineup in August. Two days later, on August 14th, Fest reversed its decision and reinvited the document to screen it as an official choice at the 50th Annual Fest.
“There’s nothing like bad publicity, but you can balance 72 hours of stress and emotions to get the film back to bring it back to the film festival,” Avrich told Variety the day before his film opened in theaters. “In the end, if (promotion) helped the film find a larger audience and streamers could accept it, I think it would have certainly been worth it.”
“When “The Road: The Ultimate Rescue” was dropped from TIFF’s official lineup on August 12 due to safety, legal and programming concerns, the film production team denounced the Fest for censorship, saying, “We are shocked and saddened that the venerable film festival rebelled against its mission and censored its own programming by rejecting the film.”
TIFF Director Cameron Bailey and documentary director Barry Avrich said, “We worked together to meet critical safety, legal and programming concerns. “We are delighted to share the road between us. The Ultimate Rescue” is this year’s Tiff selection, and the festival shares fast in filt in the novirtion between novirtion.
The Doc saved his family by chasing Israel all over the board after a 10-hour mission, and eventually played in the sold-out Reuthamson Hall on September 10th, receiving a standing ovation.
Avrich hopes that Tiff will explore programming philosophy.
“We will never oppose Gaza or the Toronto Film Festival, where we shoot films about streamers who shoot documentaries and scripted films with Gaza perspectives,” Avrich says. “If you don’t want to see them, don’t watch them. If there’s a takeaway from my films, it’s the universality of the family. This family of my films happened to be in Israel. Of course, I should probably flow with film festivals and film-like festivals.
Despite being set against the events of October 7th in the background, Avrich argues that “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue” is not a political document.
“Yes, it was shot in Israel by Canadians, and it deals with rescues, but the film has no political perspective,” says Avrich. “I always believed this would be a difficult battle for people to watch the film. The majority of people who saw it said, “We don’t understand the fuss and the characteristics of the film as political.”
Forston Consulting is handling the distribution of films in the US, and Cineplex Pictures will release Doc in Canada.
Avrich said he wouldn’t be surprised if people appeared in theaters to protest the film.
“Sadly, the world we live in regarding this film, we are prepared (for the protesters),” the director says. “I have no problem with peaceful protests against government policies, but protests against art, whether it’s film or book form, seems to be the beginning of the end for me.”
Streamers have recently shunned it from local documents, but Avrich hopes that “The Road: The Ultimate Rescue” will eventually find a home on major streaming platforms.
“It’s very bullish that streamers like Paramount+ and HBO are taking in the content and it’s a green lighting film that covers this topic and helps with discussion and debate missions.”
