03/17/2025
Israeli Filmmaker ‘Torn’ About Hostage Poster Campaign
A still image from "Torn," a 75-minute independent documentary, produced and filmed in New York City, delving into the controversy surrounding the "KIDNAPPED" poster campaign, a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the 250 hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. Submitted photo
ABIGAIL PREISZIG
Article reprinted with permission from Cleveland Jewish News
To capture the zeitgeist of winter 2023, an Israeli filmmaker documented the ripples of Hamas’ surprise attack and hostage crisis in Israel in New York City.
“Torn,” a 75-minute independent documentary, produced and filmed in New York City, delves into the controversy surrounding the “KIDNAPPED” poster campaign, a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the 250 hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
Shapira
“New York is the home for the biggest Jewish population outside of Israel, of course, it’s also a home for a very big Muslim population,” Nim Shapira, the director, producer and co-writer of the film, told the Cleveland Jewish News. “There are Israelis and Palestinians that are living here and I really felt like not only the posters were torn, but also the society – the social fabric of the city was torn apart. It’s not the same New York that I lived in. … We don’t want to listen to each other, we don’t want to hear a conversation or to discuss something with someone that doesn’t hold our narrative.”
Shapira, creative director and multidisciplinary artist, will discuss the role of documentary filmmaking in capturing history as it is being made and bearing witness to seminal events in real time from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 23 at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Building at 25101 Science Park Drive in Beachwood.
The film starts with Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz, Israeli street artists residing and working in New York, coming up with the idea for the kidnapped posters, he said. Jews, Israelis and allies chose to put the posters up by the tens of thousands across the U.S.
Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Shapira has resided in Brooklyn, N.Y., for 11 years, he said. He was visiting home during the Oct. 7 attacks and upon returning to New York, the posters around the city served as a “silver lining.”
“This was like, hey, someone is thinking about you and your loved ones in this horrible, horrible hostage crisis,” Shapira said.
These posters quickly became polarizing symbols, sparking intense clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine activists and turning New York City’s streets into battlegrounds of ideology and emotion.
The film explores the motivations behind activists putting up and tearing down the posters, unraveling the complexities of this intense “paper arm” proxy war, fought thousands of miles from the actual conflict.
“The film is an invitation for a conversation,” Shapira said. “The film is an independent documentary not funded by any government and all of this is because I wanted people to come to the theater without any bias and click play or watch the film without any bias.”
The film premiered at the Chagrin Documentary Film Fest in Chagrin Falls on the weekend of Rosh Hashanah in 2024. It has been shown throughout Europe and Canada, at colleges and universities, including Colombia and Harvard and televised in Israel on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023, he said. He has visited more than 20 Jewish community centers, film festivals and more since the premiere.
The film asks a lot of questions without giving a lot of answers, Shapira said. The goal is to fostering dialogue and encourage viewers, who have “a privilege of being thousands of miles away from the war,” to reflect on their own biases.
“We can, from Cleveland, reflect on the past year-and-a-half and build a better future for us and for the future generations,” he said. “I know these are big words, but I’m really optimistic about it and we have to, we just have to.”
Cathy Stamler, Cleveland Israel Arts Connection advisory committee member, will moderate the conversation as part of the organization’s initiative to support Israeli artists during this time of limited opportunities, according to a news release.
A light lunch will be served and kosher dietary laws will be observed.
At 10 a.m., there will be an optional film screening. The final open house and curator talk for the “ART + ACTIVISM” exhibit featuring the work of Bandaid and Mintz will follow from 1 to 3 p.m.
For more information about the sold-out event, visit bit.ly/3DCYwbP.
