David Konio and his twin brother Eitan were at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013 as the first feature of Israeli director Tom Shufal youths Which was first displayed for a praise in a panorama.
The couple, who descended from Nir Oz Kibbutz in southern Israel, played brothers kidnapping a young woman using a rifle issued by military service in an unprocessed scheme to collect funds to pay family debts.
The story was a pure imagination, but the sister bond on the big screen was real.
After a decade, David Konio was kidnapped in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 with his wife Sharon Alwoni Konio and the twin daughters of their home in Nir Oz, where about 180 out of about 400 residents were killed or kidnapped on that day.
His wife and children were released in November 2023, but after about 500 days, David Konio was not released yet, as the family stuck to the hope that he was still alive somewhere in Gaza.
His younger brother Ariel was also kidnapped and has not been released yet. They are among the 73 hostages still missing in Gaza, with Israeli intelligence, which indicates that 38 are still alive, while it is assumed that 35 dead.
Shufal returned to Berlin this year with his very personal movie A message to DavidThe seizure of the essence of his kidnapped friend and the shock of Brother Eitan, the wife of Sharon and her parents, Silvia and Jose Luis Konio.
Mix extracts from youths; Footage of the development of the film and shooting, and interviews with family members, the cinematic message adds meat and blood to the man who is now staring at the stickers “Bring him to the house”.
The film was produced by Maya Fischer, Alona Refua and Roy Bareket at Green Productions, based in Jerusalem, Shovel producers for a long time youths And the second feature Show your interests awayAnd Nancey Spielberg under the logo of Playmount Productions.
Tom Shufal, Nancy Spielberg
politeness
Spielberg, which includes EP Ole and We will write our historyIt is connected to production through the friend Jake Paltrow, who participated in the writing of Adolf Esman’s experimental drama June zero.
The deadline for Shovel and Spielberg spoke about the movie, as the world is shown for the first time in Berlinale.
Delivery date: Tom, I was very active in seeking to raise awareness about David Konio’s situation when his kidnapping news broke out for the first time. How this led to A message to David?
Tom Shufal: After October 7, I was in contact with Silvia Konio. It was very messy. Nobody knows what to do and what was really happening. It was a kind of fresh and frightening by an overwhelming majority. She used to tell me: “Can you help us upload our voice until we are eagle, and people will know what is happening.”
My immediate response was to take advantage of my cinema circle, using the fact that David was in my movie … I felt impotence but I started thinking and promised to youths. It happened to me that many elements in the movie repeated what was happening.
David and Eitan are the kidnappers, and there is this hidden terror in the movie he touched, but we did not know what we were touching. The movie has changed. I can’t see it in the same way anymore.
I went to the editorial room and tried to present an article, then realized that it should be more, and I wanted to shout, and I wanted to do this for David, and this became the basis of this cinematic message, A message to David.
The deadline: You have a strong relationship with Berlinale, but have you had any reservations about the attendees, given that the Israel-Hamas war is a hot topic here, with strong views on both sides, and the repercussions of the last closing ceremony for a year?
Shoufal: I really wanted to show the movie in Berlinali. Of course, I feel a little tense because the situation is very brittle, and people are very emotional. The movie is very personal, but many people will look at it through a very wide perspective. I know that there may be a clash but the movie, even if it is personal, belongs to the cinema. We close a kind of circle. youths It was first shown in Berlinale and David here, and got all the attention. This is a kind of closure and we hope to do this closure, we will get a brighter and brighter future here, with all other hostages alive and in good health.
Spielberg: We are all on a shaky land. One of the things that makes us all rises is that the world is very divided, very extreme. If we cannot reach a place where we can listen to each other, how will we heal? How will we move forward when everyone fights, screaming, without bothering listening? What I like about this movie and what I hope is to divide it into humanity and try to understand what a person looks and not a poster.
Delivery date: The film is extracted from the movie with shots for you. Learn about the brothers, Nir Oz Kibbutz, as well as proofs …
Shoufal: In the process of thinking about this film, I found a kind of hidden treasure, a box that has many unproductive materials, dedicated to a type of public relations film showing the process of converting David and Eitan without actors to actors. We gave them the cameras to capture their lives in Kibbutz. Suddenly, I was transferred again in time and became part of the movie and part of the message.
Delivery date: It is difficult to watch some scenes of making shots, such as showing brotherhood who are trained to kidnap …
Shoufal: I feel cold every time I see these moments. It was as if we were dancing or playing. We did not feel anything violent. It was an illusion. When you see it now, you see violence, you cannot escape from it.
In my imagination, I ask myself where is David now? What is happening to him now. You imagine a lot of terrible things and do not want to be like this. The film also looks at what is cinema, and this relationship between cinema and reality.
Delivery date: You can meet with Eitan in a burning shell at his home in Nir Oz, where he, his wife and two daughters died in the safe room after the Hamas attackers set fire to the building. How did you work with him in telling this painful story?
Shoufal: I was in a constant conversation with the family all the time because I didn’t want anything they did not want to do. They were on board the plane from the beginning, as we knew each other for many years. You are very nice with each of them. I always said, “If you are at any certain moment, you don’t feel comfortable, just tell me and we will stop, or do it in another way.”
Delivery dateDo not use any of the shots from the actual day to attack. Why this?
Shoufal: I knew from the beginning that I don’t want to do it. The moment we got these waves from violent and harsh shots, we could not see anything else. It makes you blind, and loses the human perspective of what is happening. You had stickers from people kidnapped and these extensive horror pictures. I wanted to get out of this and showed the person behind this tragedy, not some fragmented vision from surveillance cameras with pictures of terrorists.
Delivery date: Nancy, how and why did you participate in this project?
Spielberg: I was in Israel, October 7. It was the most frightening experience in my life. As an American, what can I compare? 11/9, perhaps just because I live in New York and a kind of global commercial center. In this case, I was told to close myself in a safe room because no one knows whether the terrorists were coming. It was a frightening experience.
From the moment when it happened, all we did is watching all these shots, and unfortunately, it has a devastating effect. All shock is repeated over and over, and you approach this fear and anxiety on the basis of every minute.
I make documentary films. I tell stories. I wanted to tell the story of October 7 in the same way I worked in Holocaust. I think every story is important. Everything should be documented, but I also did not want to walk in this way from the brutal shots there.
Jake Paltrow said you need to hear the Tom project. The correct answer was for me. It was a way to take this to the individual and really focus on this amazing life and this wonderful person.
We all have this innocence when we were at the height of our lives and wedding parties and an orange in the garden and wandering with our friends and we know what awaits us on the way for us. No one imagines that this is waiting for the fiercest of our imagination.
Delivery date: How did your cooperation do?
Spielberg: We are all in touch. The entire production team is great. Roy, Maya and Alauna, they are just two cooperation. I wanted to be the non -Israeli eyes group. I wanted to be the American audience, to be there to say. “Maybe the rest of the world may not know the Konio family.”
Delivery date: Have you ever worried that by shedding light on David’s story, can you endanger his life?
Shoufal: It was a dilemma from the beginning, but we want to keep it in existence, we do not want it to disappear. At a certain stage, when there was no deal, people were only walking through stickers, it became part of life, a routine. I can’t handle it. I can’t understand it. I and the family want his voice to hear. Of course, we are very worried, but this is one of the tools that we have.
Delivery date: The ceasefire plan and the hostages are very fragile. What will your message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
Shoufal: All I can say is that I think we need to do everything we can in order for the last hostage free and each of them from there, regardless of what it takes, this is the only way to go.
Delivery date: You say, “Regardless of what it takes,” does this include by violent means?
Shoufal: No violence. I just want to do a deal, and as soon as possible. There is no really time.
