Prominent industry insiders are rallying support for Oscar consideration for the documentary “We Will Dance Again,” which chronicles the horror that unfolded at Israel’s Nova International Music Festival on October 7, 2023.
Producer Marc Platt, Sean Penn, music mogul Scooter Braun and former HBO and MTV documentary chief Sheila Nevins voice their support for the film, produced by Sipur, Bitachon 365 in association with MGM Television, HSCC and Susan Zirinsky’s See It Now Studios with BBC Storyville . “We Will Dance Again” aired on the BBC Storyville platform in Britain and on Israel’s Hot Channel 8. The 90-minute documentary, written and directed by Yariv Mozer and produced by HSCC’s Michal Weits, is in the U.S. available on Paramount+.
Platt, Braun and others are hosting an invitation-only screening for the documentary on the Paramount Pictures lot on Sunday. A survivor of the Hamas terrorist attack that ignited the war in Gaza will take part in a panel session after the screening. More than 360 people were killed and many more injured when terrorists opened fire at the open-air festival held in Re’im in southern Israel.
Penn, who produced the 2023 documentary ‘Superpower’ about the war in Ukraine, speaks out in favor of ‘We Will Dance Again’.
“We worry about the term ‘must see film’, and yet films rarely live up to that in a literal sense. As heartbreakingly revealing as it is, ‘We Will Dance Again’ is truly a must-see film in our time,” said Penn.
Nevins emphasized that a documentary like ‘We Will Dance Again’ is the right vehicle to document earth-shattering events and also help process the trauma.
“The camera captures everything. This brilliant documentary transcends all the vulgarity of Hamas’s inhumanity by shouting: ‘We will dance again,’” Nevins said.
The film combines the brutal attack with video footage from various sources, including incredibly disturbing material released online by Hamas terrorists. The subsequent war in Gaza has caused a global humanitarian crisis, killing more than 44,000 Palestinians. Nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed in the October 7 attack and 63 people remain captured by the 251 hostages Hamas took on October 7.
Zirinsky, the longtime CBS News producer and former CBS News president, emphasized that the film focuses on the young adults whose lives were destroyed that day.
“Apolitical – and the authenticity of the twelve survivors – this film immerses you in events as they unfolded right before your eyes – which is why so many of Hollywood’s greatest storytellers have expressed their appreciation for unraveling of this tragedy as we honor the memories. of the many lives lost,” Zirinsky said.
Additional executive producers of “We Will Dance Again” are Emilio Schenker, Michael Peter Schmidt, Ariel Weisbrod, Orly Arbell and Gideon Tadmor for Sipur; Sheldon Lazarus, Ben Winston, Leo Pearlman, Ben Turner and Gabe Turner for Bitachon 365; Dari Shay, Rinat Klein, Haim Slutsky and Dorit Hessel for HSCC; Lucie Kon for BBC Storyville; Arturo Interian and Terence foul for See It Now Studios.