‘Holding Liat’ review: Israeli family suffers their own hostage crisis

Dir. Brandon Kramer. US 2025. 93mins

The winner of this yr’s Berlinale Documentary Award, Holding Liat is an emotionally wealthy, politically thought-provoking account of 1 Israeli-American household’s ordeal within the wake of the October 7 assaults by Hamas. Shot primarily within the weeks following the kidnapping of two members of the family, Brandon Kramer’s movie presents intimate, empathetic perception into the affect of the assaults on the Beinin household; it additionally depicts a extra complicated image of Israeli residents’ political attitudes than has typically been accessible within the wake of Israel’s retaliatory marketing campaign in Gaza.

Helps deliver nuance and understanding to a seamless disaster

With hostage releases nonetheless happening and the Center Japanese scenario turning into ever extra complicated given current American intervention, this well timed movie, which has Darren Aronofsky amongst its producers, ought to discover receptive audiences in every single place, and assist deliver nuance and understanding to a seamless disaster.

Respectively directed and produced by brothers Brandon and Lance Kramer, family members of the Beinin household, the movie began capturing two weeks after October 7, when instructor Liat Beinin Atzili and her husband, artist and mechanic Aviv Atzili, had been amongst these taken hostage within the Hamas assault on Israel’s Kibbutz Nir Oz. A lot of the movie focuses on their aged mother and father, American-born couple Yehuda and Chaya Beinin, resident in Israel for the reason that early ’70s. The movie information their fear about Liat and Aviv, and persevering with frustration at their not being included within the lists of hostages due for launch.

Yehuda agrees to go to the US as a part of a delegation to encourage the American authorities, then below President Biden, to push for hostage launch. However Yehuda – whose automotive carries a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker – is a dedicated liberal staunchly against the Israeli regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose motivations and prioritising of army motion in Gaza he completely disapproves of. On his US go to, Yehuda is horrified to search out his presence, and that of different hostage households, getting used to assist pro-war agendas. 

In the meantime, Yehuda’s insistence on discussing a potential peaceable future for Israelis and Palestinians just isn’t solely thought-about a distraction by some organisers of the journey, but additionally opens up variations inside his household. His grandson Netta – who himself survived the Nir Ozattack – is extra strictly targeted on his mother and father’ launch, whereas the misery of lengthy uncertainty takes its toll on Yehuda and Chaya. Representing one other place once more is Yehuda’s brother Joel Beinin, who – like Liat’s sister Tal, additionally outstanding right here – lives in Portland, Oregon. Joel is a professor of Center Japanese historical past whose personal expertise of residing in Israel within the ’70s left him completely disillusioned with the nation and what it represents. 

Brandon Kramer will get near the household in a approach that, had been he not associated to them, may be thought to be intrusive – there’s one second when Yehuda says, “Off the document…” and Chaya retorts that the time period is meaningless below the circumstances. There’s one uncomfortable second on the US journey when Yehuda is approached by a Palestinian advocate. He appears unsure in regards to the man’s motivations, and about how a lot he ought to open up to him about his personal convictions – not least with the digital camera recording their dialog.

When the household lastly obtain definitive information, the end result is directly comfortable and tragic. The movie’s coda, shot three months after the principle occasions, has Liat musing on what she has realized from her expertise as a hostage, one which appears to have been much less painful than  others. 

This profoundly revealing documentary ought to assist raise the taboo noticed by many who’ve most well-liked to not handle the occasions of October 7 within the mild of Israel’s subsequent actions. The movie is structured and edited in such a approach as to stress narrative readability and the emotional content material of its household portraiture, with Jordan Dykstra’s music spare however generally over-emphatic. None of that, nevertheless, compromises the movie’s integrity as an outline of disaster, or as a plea for a peace that continues to be agonisingly elusive.