The Wendy Sachs documentary filmmaker was with her daughter Lexi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when she first learned of the Hamas on October 7, 2023.
“Pictures coming out of Israel, babies and children, young people, grandparents who were killed. Their murders were covered on Facebook. Videos from Telegram from Nova Festival, young people taken to hostage and abducted in Gaza,” Sachs recalled Fox News Digital.
But when she saw the rush of anti -Semitism on the college campuses across the country in the coming days, she knew she had to do something.
“On October 8, when I saw protests at Times Square, and then I saw what was happening the next day of October 9, and at Harvard, where more than 30 student groups signed a letter that accused of attacking itself. And then we saw that the same thing was happening from campus after campus, from Colombia in Nyu, she just lost in myth.”
“And so, by the end of October, I knew I had to document what was happening,” she added. “And then I wrote the treatment of the movie.”
What resulted in “October 8”, a documentary film that was questioned a disturbing increase in anti -Semitism Against students of the Faculty of Jewish at the most elite universities of our country, and the disturbing and nasty forces launching this phenomenon.
“October 8” examines the outbreak of anti -Semitism that plagues elite faculties in this country. (Christopher L. D’Alessandro)
Sachs, author and filmmaker whose previous works include the movie “Tilt” and the book “Fearless and Free: How Smart Women Turn and Reboot Career”, have spent 80 interviews with October 7. SurvivorsStudents, celebrities and politicians for this movie. Actress Debra Messing, an envoy of Ritchie Torres (Dn.y.) and former Meta Coo Sheryl Sandberg help try to unaccount how much seemingly well -educated young people could go through the support of the Hamas terrorist group.
What Sachs established was a well -oriented campaign for the delegitimization of the Jewish state and the stigmatization of its supporters abroad.
In one of the most important discoveries of the movie, the older “Hamas leaders in America” are heard strategic about how to infiltrate “media, universities and research centers” and coordinate their language to make Hamas the most stylish American progressive audience.
“Americans … We have to contact them from the position of law and justice, and at the same time they choose our words well,” says an unidentified voice in the recording.
Organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide”, while on October 7, they fell silent or silent on the crimes of Hamas, according to Sachs. She said that silence from these groups made her make this movie.
“In the weeks that followed October 7, there were so many silences from Hollywood and so silent organizations for women’s rights and silence from politicians I admire and respect and support and even among my own professional women’s networks.
“It was just crazy, hypocrisy and double standards that were happening when it came to Israel and the fact that they were raped by Jewish women and who were killed and being crippled,” Sachs said.
Jewish students felt under siege since anti-Israelic demonstrations began. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
The film highlighted several cases of anti-Semitism that occurred on the college campuses, including the mobs of anti-Israeli activists who persecuted students of Jewish Cooper who had to lock themselves in the library for protection, Ucla anti-dealership demonstrants Creating zones in a campus where “Zionists” were not allowed to pass, and Jewish students in Cornella were told not to leave their dormitory for threats on their physical security.
Former student body president of UC Santa Barbara Tessa Veksler was subjected to a torrent of abuse and almost reminded herself from her position for her support from Israel.
“I remember having to miss my final exams personally, I had to take all the exams on the net because the campus was simply not safe for me,” Veksler said in the movie.
Sachs and other Jewish artists were appalled in Hollywood because of their silence due to the attack on October 7th. Messing revealed that she struggled to find signatories for a letter calling for the world government to help bring the hostages home.
“I felt completely released Hollywood,” Messing said in the movie.
A scene at a warehouse in Kfar Chabad in Israel on October 7th after Hamas fired Rockets on a one -year -old anniversary of the terrorist attack launched by the Gaza war. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The production of this movie was a sublime battle, Sachs admitted. She struggled to find a distribution for a documentary, and even after finding a distributor, she was unable to get a “October 8” placed at any main film festival.
Sachs told Fox News Digital that film festivals like SXSW Berlinale will not allow her to be screened by a documentary, but they will allow the Palestinians movies.
“Something really insidious happens in an independent film community,” she said.
“This is much bigger than the Jewish community. This is much bigger than the state of Israel. This is all of us in America. This is a West. This is an Islamic jihadism, an extremism opposite democracy. So these are the role right now,” she added.
Sachs hopes that her film serves as an educational tool that schools can use in the K-12 program to help fight anti-Semitism.
“October 8” was in cinemas on Friday, March 14th.
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