“Cries before silence” gives voice to the survivors of October 7

Director Anat Stalinsky felt like many of her fellow Israelis following the October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people and took hundreds more hostage.

Hopeless.

Few documentaries have the hype value of “Screams Before Silence,” and yet it has been completely ignored by professional film critics.

So when she was asked to make a documentary allowing survivors to share their stories, she agreed without hesitation.

“I had the opportunity to use my professional skills and creative abilities to change something,” Stalinsky told Align.

“Screams Before Silence,” available for free on YouTube and its official website, confronts viewers with the full brutality of that day. The death. Grated. Torture. Cruelties that recall the barbarity of the Third Reich through the prism of the 21st century.

The images are raw and relentless, the testimonies depict atrocities that shock the senses. The focus is on sexual torture, a phenomenon downplayed by organizations like the United Nations women’s rights agency.

This organization took 55 days to condemn the attacks of October 7.

The terrorists used cellphones and GoPro cameras to capture some of the horrors. Stalinsky deliberately avoids these images, letting the survivors paint the scene with words and tears.

“I decided not to use explicit graphic visuals, even though I could have. I wanted people to be able to watch it,” she says of the decision to leave the horrors off-screen. “It allows viewers to experience the emotional process without abandoning the film,” she says.

The film remains hard to bear.

The people interviewed on screen did not want to relive these nightmares. For them, they had little choice.

“They all understood the importance of the documentary and felt the need to share their story,” Stalinsky said of the film’s participants. This ties back to groups like the USC Shoah Foundation, an organization that collects personal testimonies from Holocaust survivors to teach future generations.

The documentary’s value has only increased since its release in May.

It is likely that many of the pro-Palestinian protesters raging on American campuses have not seen or even heard of the film. Others might deny his conclusions, as if Stalinsky’s subjects had collectively imagined a nightmare.

“Rape is not a struggle for freedom,” Stalinski says as one of the reasons to deny what happened.

Even more high-profile names suggest that “Screams Before Silence” reveals misinformation about steroids.

Public figures like Bassem Youssef (known as Egyptian Jon Stewart) and Oscar winner Susan Sarandon have questioned whether Hamas terrorists sexually assaulted countless women that fateful day. They ignore the video shot and shared by the terrorists as well as the 45-minute video compiled by Israeli forces and shown in front of selected celebrities and politicians.

Former Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg is not only a driving force behind the film, but also the on-screen presence that asks each survivor’s tough but necessary questions. Sandberg appears on the verge of tears several times throughout the film.

Few documentaries have the hype value of “Screams Before Silence,” and yet it has been completely ignored by professional film critics. TheWrap.com has published an early review of the film. Independent critic Danielle Solzman did as well.

That’s basically it for a powerful film tied to the daily news cycle. It’s also available online 24/7 and would set a reviewer back well under 90 minutes. A month after its release, official reviews can be counted on one hand.

“I think maybe people don’t want to talk about it,” she suggests. “You can’t criticize the film just as a film.”

“Screams” is not available on Max, Netflix or other major platforms.

The Hollywood community has also remained tight-lipped about the film. No hashtag campaigns or calls for activism, even from the feminist stars who rose up at the height of the MeToo movement.

“It’s quite shocking. You would think it would get more of a response from people telling stories,” she says. The lack of similar projects within the creative community has not deterred his mission. It fueled him.

“It made us want to make the film more, to break the silence, in a way,” she says.