Letter to David, a documentary by Tom Shoval about David Cunio, one of the hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, will be shown at the 75th Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, which will take place in February, the festival announced last week.
It is one of several movies of Israeli and Jewish interest that will take part in the festival this year.
Documentary filmmaker Nancy Spielberg is one of the producers of Letter to David, which details how Shoval directed Cunio and his brother Eitan in the drama Youth, which won worldwide acclaim in 2013. The Cunio brothers played siblings who, ironically, kidnap a classmate in a misguided attempt to get their family out of debt.
David Cunio was widely praised for his performance, but instead of pursuing acting, he became an electrician. He was living in Kibbutz Nir Oz with his family when he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists along with his wife and twin daughters. His wife, Sharon Aloni Cunio, and children were released in the hostage deal in November 2023.
David’s brother Ariel Cunio was also taken hostage, along with his girlfriend, Arbel Yehoud, and they are still being held. David is not on the list of hostages to be released in the current hostage deal.
Shoval said that he and David formed a strong bond while making Youth, and that the new documentary includes raw footage from that film.
“The documentary will serve as both a personal letter and a multilayered portrayal of the new reality in war-torn Kibbutz Nir Oz, where many were murdered or abducted,” said Shoval. “This affecting visual journey reflects on what was and never will be again, the cruel separation of the brothers, and the inexplicable connection between life and cinema, memory and reality. The film will not use footage from October 7 but will rely on existing materials to testify to the unimaginable.”
The documentary was produced for Hot 8.
At the Berlinale
Showing the documentary at the Berlinale will be particularly meaningful, Shoval said, because Youth premiered there in 2013. It will also bring focus to the plight of the hostages at a time when many in the European arts community tend to ignore their existence.
While earlier, Israeli films had a huge presence at this festival, in recent years fewer movies from Israel have been included. Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms won the Golden Bear, the festival’s top award, in 2019, but that was the last high-profile award for an Israeli film there.
Israeli filmmakers who regularly showed their early work at the Berlinale have spoken off the record about having their films rejected by the festival in recent years. Some expressed hope that the tide will turn and that Israeli films will again be able to have more of a presence at the event.
Another Israeli movie that will be shown this year is Batim by Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum. It is described as a story about nonbinary Sasha, who came to Israel from the Soviet Union with her family as a child in the 1990s. Haunted by memories, Sasha visits their old houses and thinks about the meaning of home. The movie stars Yael Eisenberg, Tali Sharon, and Evgenia Dodina.
There will be a number of films of Jewish interest there this year, however. These include the German premiere of A Complete Unknown, a biopic about Bob Dylan starring Timothee Chalamet, directed by James Mangold.
The Berlinale Special section will screen Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, the late director’s 1985 nine-and-a-half-hour-long documentary about the Holocaust, considered by many to be the greatest on this subject.
There will also be a film about Lanzmann and the making of Shoah, called All I Had Was Nothingness, by Guillaume Ribot.
In the Panorama Documentary section, the film Bedrock, by Kinga Michalska, will be shown. It is described as a psychological journey across today’s Poland that weaves together stories of Poles living on Holocaust sites.
In the Forum Expanded section, the film Miraculous Accident, by Assaf Gruber, will be screened. It tells the story of Moroccan student Nadir, who arrives at the Lodz Film School in 1968. He meets Jewish teacher Edyta, who was forced to leave Poland after the Six-Day War. In 2024 he finds her letter, reviving memories of a fractured love.
Mexican-Jewish director Michel Franco’s Dreams will be shown in the Competition section. It stars Jessica Chastain in the story of a romance between a wealthy socialite and a Mexican ballet dancer.
The films to be shown this year are pretty much set, but occasionally there are last-minute additions.
This is the first year that Tricia Tuttle is the Berlinale’s director. For decades, the festival’s director was Dieter Kosslick, who took a great interest in the work of Israeli filmmakers and was a close friend of Jerusalem Cinematheque founder Lia van Leer, but he retired several years ago.
For more information about the festival, go to the website at Berlinale.de