A week after the Venice Film Festival gave its second prize to the Palestinian docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab, about the 6 year old girl who was shot dead in Gaza, the second major event of the autumn, the Toronto International Film Festival, has given its top documentary prize to The Road Between Us, about a retired Israeli general, who sets out to rescue his family from a kibbutz, attacked by Hamas on the 7th of October.

The outcome raises a slew of interesting points that have the potential to pave the way for some turmoil ahead in Hollywood, which is only now settling back down again after years of disruption from Covid and labour strikes.

Just one month ago, The Road Between Us, was uninvited by the organisers, having previously been listed in the programme – the reason given being that not all the rights had been cleared for the images it includes; what organisers were saying was that they couldn’t screen a film that included footage shot by Hamas themselves during the October the 7th attacks on southern Israel without consent forms signed by the Hamas fighters who shot footage – as well as Israelis. Just days later, after protests from a number of film-makers and many in Jewish and Israeli communities, the festival dropped its demands and allowed the film to be screened after all.

As pro- and anti-Israeli demonstrators shouted at each other from across the street outside the Roy Thomson Hall, the head of the festival, Cameron Bailey, apologised to an audience of nearly 2000 people for the way the situation had been handled.

The film’s director Barry Avrich told Deadline that he had made “dozens and dozens and dozens of documentaries” and he’d never been asked for legal clearances before. He said he believed antisemitism and antizionism were part of why the festival tried to cancel his documentary and while he was very happy the decision was reversed, he thought a film festival should be in the business of showing art. “You’re not going to make everyone happy,” he acknowledges, stressing that the mission statement of the festival is about artistic freedom and dialogue and debate.

Coming just a week after a film from the Palestinian perspective was honoured at another festival, the situation highlights Avrich’s desire for dialogue and debate, rather than exclusion, which brings further into focus last week’s letter, signed by about 4000 film industry figures, including Oscar winners such as Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Joaquin Phoenix and Oscar nominees such as Mark Ruffalo – pledging to boycott the majority of the Israeli film industry, stating that the “world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, has ruled that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza” – a statement that the then President of the ICJ has dismissed as incorrect; for clarity, she said the court concluded that the Palestinians have a plausible right to be protected from genocide, not that there was a plausible genocide.

In response to the letter from Film Workers For Palestine, Israeli film-makers say their industry is a vibrant hub of collaboration between Jewish and Palestinian artists, who work together to tell complex stories that entertain and inform both communities and the world. They note that many of the signatories of the pro-Palestine letter have previously lauded Israeli films that challenge the government. They warn that censorship has been used to silence filmmakers throughout history, and while it is dressed up as virtue, every time it is oppression. And they stress that arts should be a bridge, not a bludgeon, urging their colleagues to stand against Hamas and reject an anti-Semitic boycott that adds yet another roadblock on the path to peace.

But while you might expect this kind of response from the Israeli film-makers being targeted by the industry figures, one of the major Hollywood studios, Paramount, has criticised the boycott, saying it believes in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people and promote mutual understanding. “Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace,” it says, stressing that, “We need more engagement and communication — not less.”

The authors of the pro-Palestine letter hit back at Paramount, claiming that the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has enjoyed a holiday on an island owned by Larry Ellison, a controlling shareholder of Paramount. It does not sound like reconciliation is around the corner.

But take a step back and look at where the industry currently finds itself; two major festivals – one gives a significant award to a film addressing the Palestinian perspective of the war in Gaza, the other recognising a film that depicts an Israeli story, after trying and failing to cancel the film; about 4000 leading film industry figures pledging to boycott most Israeli film-makers while one of the main Hollywood studios says, “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers.”

There are voices on both sides making statements that will be difficult to roll back and further digging in when their position is challenged. The issue of the war in Gaza has divided friends and families – split politicians – and has now opened a chasm within Hollywood itself. The film industry could be heading for more months of fireworks ahead.

With all this in mind, it’s almost a side note that one of the most prestigious honours of the film calendar, Toronto’s People’s Choice Award – usually a cast-iron guarantee of recognition in the upcoming awards season – went to Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, with Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, coming second and third respectively.