Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / What I've Learnt - Wendy Sachs

Transcript

What I've Learnt - Wendy Sachs · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a timely and tragic day to feature the director of the October 8th film, Wendy Sachs, with the devastating murder of two young innocents in Washington.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Last night, a couple were shot and killed in DC by a man who was screaming Free Palestine.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yaron Leshinsky and Sarah Milgram were leaving a peace-building event at the Capitol Jewish Museum and were about to get engaged.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: October 8th, the film, offers a look at the explosion of anti-Semitism on college campuses, social media, and in the streets of America, beginning the day after the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: It now seems sadly prophetic.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Through meticulous investigation, the film also uncovers how, over decades, Hamas created sophisticated networks in America to permeate US institutions and examines the tsunami of online anti-Semitism, propaganda, and disinformation unleashed by Iran, China, and Russia, with the sole purpose of dividing American society.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm very grateful and thrilled to have Director Wendy Sachs, who joins me at the What I've Learned Podcast, to deep dive and discuss the complexities of making screening, distributing this powerful documentary, and getting it out to the world.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, Wendy, welcome to the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I know you're here in Australia and you've been very welcomed, and people, your mission has resonated very strongly with a lot of people.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, obviously, last night's news must have reverberated very powerfully for you in light of what you're doing.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's just gutting.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think this is what we we talk about even in the film.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, there's a soundbite from Orrin Siegel, who's the head of extremism at the ADL.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: They're combating extremism and tracking the hate targeting the Jewish community.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: And he says in the film, my biggest fear is that someone's going to get killed.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: That these words, free Palestine from the river to the sea, globalize the antifada, all of these, all of this language and frankly the propaganda and the lies that we see on social media, but also repeated and picked up in mainstream media.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we just know that it has an impact that this language, these words, the hate, this visceral, fanatical, obsessive hate toward the state of Israel, it has ramifications and it becomes targeting Jews, targeting Israelis, targeting Jewish institutions, targeting organizations that are, you know, pro-Israel.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, all of this has real life, real world repercussions.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: As we see, like last, I mean, he actually, when he murdered these young innocents last yesterday, he shouted free Palestine.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I think I think one of the things that people are concerned about is obviously there are people who are shouting these words and taking on this mantra without a full understanding of the implications, which is what your film alludes to.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's become sort of almost entrenched without information and knowledge behind it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: And what we also talk about in the film, and that you even see from this man from yesterday in Washington, D.C., who's a so-called Marxist.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's this intersectionality uh that we're seeing on the far left.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we know what anti-Semitism on the far right looks like.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um the neo-Nazis, the Jews will not replace us in America, of course, it was Charlottesville in the, you know, KKK holding their, you know, holding their tiki torches and in that sort of typical neo-Nazi fashion.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: But what we're seeing more and was actually more disturbing, I would argue, is what we're seeing on the left with these very far radical left-wing Marxists slash socialist organizations and this obsessive hate against Israel that has just morphed into modern day anti-Semitism.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And what we get into in the in our film is, you know, we're not litigating the war, we're not talking about land disputes or border.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's very important, or the BB government are policies or Israeli policies, which you can disagree with, and it's healthy to disagree with a government's policies.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's a democratic process.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people do.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's very important.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people do, and most Israelis, I would argue, are even they're protesting their own government.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we do here in the States, as you do in Australia.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's very healthy to participate in and have free speech.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: But what we've seen is hate speech and how quickly it's evolved into targeting Jews, and to targeting Israelis, and targeting synagogues and Jewish institutions and places of worship.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's where we're at right now.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was actually um at the Nakba rally in Melbourne uh last weekend.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was filming and I was standing sort of within, you know, with hundreds, I think I maybe it was more than a thousand people.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't actually know what the headcount was.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was filming, I was actually standing, and I'm forgetting the name of the man who's the head of the Palestine movement here in Australia, who apparently his family has links to Hamas and connections.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know who you're talking about.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the chants are all about, you know, 1948, one state, we want it all.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: They are not chanting for peace.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: They are not chanting for a two-state solution, they are chanting for no more Jews.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that is that's the language that's been, you know, used across the West.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh what I was also uh photographing and filming when I was there, whereas all of the Marxist and socialist organizations, so that those are the um, excuse me, the affinity groups that have found um a connection with this pro-Palestinian and I would argue pro-Hamas movement.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's an interesting point that that's very important for our listeners to understand, because the film is not meant to be um a political dissertation, it's not taking a position on Israel.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think anybody watching it or knowing what's going on, or we're all horrified by what's happening in Gaza.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a political statement from you.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: What it is is a an overview of anti-Semitism like an epidemic.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why is this infiltrating all of these institutions and all of these aspects of life when there's a war which is horrible and horrific?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody is sitting there going, we don't care.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is because there's a lot of backlash, obviously, to people saying, well, that's great about the film.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's very important to highlight those issues.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: What I think is the disconnect, and I know particularly for a lot of young people, is how is it that these terrible things are happening in Gaza and Israel is behaving a certain way?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: How can we not um disassociate the two?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what's strange is why is anti-Semitism become so it's like a raging fire.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: It always has been.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is, you know, as we know hatred.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Historically, um, there's only 100,000 Jews here in all of Australia.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Jews make up less than 3% of the population in America.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're 0.2%.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: We are the minority of the minority of the minority.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Most people have never met a Jew in their life before.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it were very easy to target.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, the tropes that Jews control the world, Jews control the media, Jews control the banks, Jews control Hollywood.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Those tropes are alive and well, you know, and this whole ideology of the oppressor, oppressed, um, the white colonial, you know, colonizer, um, that has just like seeped into academia.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's just infiltrated itself for decades now.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And when you have organizations who are supposed to be the moral authority of the world, like the Amnesty Internationals and the UN, you know, the Human Rights Watch Group and uh Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, and all of these organizations that are supposed to basically do the good housekeeping stamp of approval on moral clarity and moral um convictions and who has, you know, the conscience of the world.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then when Israel comes down time and time and time again as an apartheid state, and they're being accused of genocide, and they're being accused of blood libel, the that seeps into a population.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then you connect that and you add that with social media and what's happening on TikTok and what young people are being fed online, and then add that to the mix of foreign actors having their finger on the scale of what young people are seeing and manipulating algorithms from Iran and China and Russia, we have a perfect storm.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what we're seeing right now.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And make no mistake, Hamas has been playing the long game.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: They are sophisticated, they are well funded, they are in the West, they are organized.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: They are here in Australia, they are in America, they're in the UK, they're in Canada.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And what we document in the film in a very revelatory scene is how Hamas in America, from a from a um FBI wiretap going back to 1993, from a Philadelphia hotel room, a Marriott hotel room, you hear Hamas members in America plotting how they were going to infiltrate American institutions, how they were going to get into the media, how they were going to infiltrate university campuses, and how they were going to message themselves.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: They were very sophisticated and they talked in terms of when they're speaking to people on the left, they're going to speak in terms of apartheid and colonialism.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: They knew exactly what they were doing.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So by October 8th, 2023, there was already a toolkit ready to go that was sent out to college campuses, to the SJP, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across America, using the Hamas language and iconography to rally, to become the rallying cry for these campus organizations.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: So this is not happening in a vacuum.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it's a perfect storm, the demonization of Israel, the delegitimizing of the state of Israel, the making Israel the pariah state, which has been happening for such a long time with the United Nations and elsewhere.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then the media picks up on all of this.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: It is no wonder why, you know, when we're what we're seeing today in the streets of the free world is a, you know, a crying out against an attack of Jews.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think everything you say is very, very um enlightening.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and certainly the film, which I've seen, is very inspiring in terms of the way that you're framing it, and it's very, very difficult because the narrative has been hijacked unequivocally, as you've outlined just now.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: But how will we as a community, because you're seeing this in every country, and I know that you're doing the global tour, how is it that it's so we were so ill-equipped and nobody knew what was happening?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I, you know, and it's when I say we, I mean the Western world.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not just the Jewish community, but how is it that that everybody was so blindsided?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I find extraordinary.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Every government in the West is like, oh, what just happened?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it's a little complicated.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think for the Jewish community, we can separate it out.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think for the Jewish community, I'm gonna argue, I don't know about here in Australia, uh, but in America, I can say we were asleep at the wheel.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, things have been relatively good for the past 50, 60 years for Jews in America.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a sense of safety, uh, even though we are less than 3% of the population, we punch above our weight.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: We um are over-indexed in a lot of spaces, and uh we're doing well academically, financially, um, like we have pretty much throughout history in Europe and all of the places until anti-Semitism rises up and then you know either expels us, kills us, or pushes us into the ghetto.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Every decade, yeah, it's almost every century, every decade, every generation, yeah, yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, every other generation what we what we're seeing.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: This is history repeating itself, and we, you know, we assimilate, we uh do all of the things, uh support the arts are very philanthropic, and then you know, the ugliness rears its rears its head again.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: In Australia, you know, I at the events that I've been going to, I've been hearing just how complacent the Jewish community has been, because you really didn't feel any anti-Semitism.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, we all grew up, I mean, a lot of people it's it's infiltrated very surreptitiously.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: It it has not been, as you you're pointing out, in Australia, there was a sense that, you know, just like it was in Europe, in a sense.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody's just your neighbor's your neighbor.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everyone prays for each other, you know.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's almost like this idea that we're like in a post-anti-Semitic society.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in America, though, we have seen the rise um since 2016.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we saw it with the election of President Trump, um, and we saw, you know, the uh Jews will not replace us and the rise of neo-Nazis.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I but I think what was more surprising is the building and growing anti-Semitism on the left, which has also been, it has also been evolving and growing over the past decade or so.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of people just didn't want to see it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the Jewish community in America, 70% of the Jewish community are registered Democrats and consider themselves aggressive and supportive of progressive issues and progressive values.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And yet what we're seeing uh in progressive circles and certainly in the far left part of the party is just a sort of wild uh embracing of anti-Semitism, although others will just call it anti-Zionism, uh, you know, just sort of this obsessive hate of Israel rather than saying that it's actually anti-Semitism.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: What we do in the film, though, is explain how anti-Semitism has morphed over the ages in the modern form of it isn't anti-Zionism.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's where the confusion happens, to be honest, because I think obviously you've got the complexity around the diaspora and people being living in other countries, then you've got the Israel focus, and suddenly the two have become, you know, it often people in the diaspora, there were some that are not necessarily supportive of Israel or not don't see themselves as aligned with Israel.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: But because of the attack and the um, put it this way, the world is telling Jews that they are aligned with Israel, whether they like it or not.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the complexities, I think, that that people are grappling with, you know, because they might not necessarily have seen themselves as fully aligned with Israel, but Jewish people out in the diaspora, just you know, immersed in culture in whatever country they're in.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's a big push.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's either like, are you for us or are you against us?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of very I think we get a little tribal.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think when we're under attack, we have to come together.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're such small numbers.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think there's a there's a feeling um that's been expressed, you know, that after October 7th, Israelis became more American or more part of the diaspora Jewry, and diaspora Jewry became more Israeli.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because there has been a divide.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of people in the diaspora who don't really, you know, do didn't really consider themselves Zionists or had never been to Israel, or maybe Israel was like not really so much on their radar because they're very comfortable and they just don't identify that way.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, Jews are under attack throughout the West, in North America, here in Australia, and in Europe.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it just feels like, you know, what's going on here?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like we're in a dystopia.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how it does, absolutely.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that is really the theme of my film is how did we get to this moment where Hamas is being celebrated as freedom fighters rather than being condemned as terrorists on the most elite campuses and in this, you know, in America and in North America and here in Australia, and just in the streets.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like what is going on?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: How do we get it?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think how do we get here?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think also what is coming out, obviously, is there are funding infiltrations, which which obviously is briefly referenced in the film, but also is everywhere.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's highlighted that there's been massive funding injected into those universities from certain areas and arenas which have fostered that, but that's a whole other that's that's actually my next project.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, um, we're going to be doing a film.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing a film um called Poison Ivy, where we're going to be examining the foreign funding and how that has also impacted campuses and all sorts of institutions.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now that is interesting and a great title, by the way.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to say I think that's a very good title.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very poetic.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it really, it really is that I think is that is going to be an extraordinary story and journey to go on for you.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just on that note, now um I saw you speaking when um I went to see the documentary, and you talked about how challenging it was to get the documentary, one made, two uh distributed, and getting it out to the world, because you met with a lot of resonance, a lot of resistance, but it's had a lot of resonance and you've got it up and you've got it out.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit about that journey because go you, you're pretty brave and determined.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's a very tough time to be out in the world doing what you're doing.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so right after October 7th, it was within two weeks or so of the attack, um, I started writing a treatment for the film.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that I wanted to, I saw everything that was going on between the social media and the streets and the universities, and I thought I need to document this.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is epic.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I put together a treatment for the film and I shopped it around to different production companies where I had worked, and no one wanted to touch it.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had done another independent film before.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so I know what it's like to make an independent movie, um, a documentary, and it's really challenging.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I promised myself I'm like never gonna do that again.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I was getting hired by production companies to work on films.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but here I was, I shop it around, everyone says no.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, okay, here I go again.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: And um I started booking people for the film, and I did my first shoot um November 14th of 2023 was the big Israel rally in Washington, DC.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I sort of planted my flag and told everyone I'm making a film.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Here, here I go.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: And really early on, I was told, you know, you're gonna have a really hard time selling this, you know, no one's gonna want to represent this, no streamer is gonna touch it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I just kept going.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: And by the summer, I but also just so you know, it's a completely donor-funded film.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't take investment money.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's all donor-funded, it's all through a fiscal sponsor.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: So the money was all tax deductible to my donors.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: But you never know in ROI.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's generally not such a big return on investment when it comes to a documentary.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: So this is how I did it all.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I promised all of my donors we were going to have a completed film by October 7th, 2024.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was my drop-dead date.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to get it out into the world.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was working against the clock and working just nonstop, 24 or 7, to move mountains to get this film done.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And over the summer, I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: My editors are based in LA.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I was meeting with everyone in Hollywood, um, all of the agencies, uh WME, William Morris, Gersh, UTA, CAA, uh, talking to sort of all the agents who, by the way, were all Jewish.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then to me, yeah, everyone said to me, This is really important.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you're making this film.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: They saw cuts of this film.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: They saw you know, rough cuts, fine cuts of the film.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: They thought it was great.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but sorry, we can't represent it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, we can't touch it, we can't sell it, no one's gonna want to buy it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just, I listen, I just kept going.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I was trying to block out the noise.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that there were other films coming out, October 7th films.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was differentiating our film and I was calling it, you know, the October 8th film.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was about the aftermath.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's not about the atrocities of October 7th, but it's about everything that's happening here on campuses and in the streets.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I just hit a lot of resistance.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: But honestly, I had a fairy godfather who came in during the summer, a guy, his name is Teddy Schwartzman.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: He runs a production company and he wanted to help out, but they came in really just to help me out, not to um officially represent the film right away, but to to but to work it for me and to to make connections for me.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: He really believed in the film.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, he doesn't typically do documentaries, so he was really coming in um just as just like honestly, I I feel like as a guardian angel to this project and really believing in it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, uh, through him and through his team, we found a partner in Briarcliffe and Tom Ordenberg, who is uh incredible and takes on sort of hard to uh perhaps hard to sell documentaries.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: But what's so interesting is that the film exceeded everyone's expectations.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: It blew everyone away.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's a premium documentary.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: I thought when we got distribution and we were told we were going to be in theaters, we'd be in a few on a few screens for a weekend or a week.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Instead, we opened across America on 137 screens, and we were in we were in theaters for a month.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: We were in theaters for four weeks.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was unfortunate.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Unbelievable in the biggest America in AMC and in Regal movie chains.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: And we were filling seats.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I just kept telling people buy these theaters out, show Hollywood demand for this film because it's not just about me or this film.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's about this kind of movie and what this is saying to the world.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really important to show up.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so we did that.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: It was hugely successful, not just by the, and we're not being seen just by the Jewish community.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: There are non-Jews coming into it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Very important.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because we don't want an echo chamber.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: You and I, you know, we know this.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is very important.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that to that point, I know that you are very you encourage non-Jewish people to watch it online or to go to the theater and see it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: That is very important because it it gives a very important and different lens that you can't really get elsewhere.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just on that note, it's interesting that you had such success and you had such infiltration.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Documentaries generally are hard to get infiltration anyway.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Very hard to get out of here.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Very hard to get out of the world.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've worked in the space and I know how difficult that is.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: And getting funding and getting it out there.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you put down?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what do you put it down to?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think this has resonated?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you think?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, four weeks in the theaters and in 137 theaters is extraordinary, really.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is because this film is not about the Jewish community and it's not about the state of Israel.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's about something so much bigger.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: We are talking about, it's very, very important to understand this.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: In the way that I chose people to appear in the film, the casting that I did for the film, the storytelling, the characters.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: We have non-Jewish voices in there.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's a diverse group of people.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: The characters, their character stories are really powerful.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're not preaching, we are not um evangelizing.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: We are letting an audience, we are trusting an audience to see it for themselves, to see the receipts, to see to basically we're lifting up the hood and saying, look at what's happening here.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And what we're showing and what the theme of the film is really about is that this is about extremism and Islamic jihadism and Marxism versus democracy in the West.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: These are the values that we're up against.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And this is so much bigger than the small Jewish community, and so much bigger than the state of Israel.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we like to say like Jews are the canary in the coal mine, and what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's so much bigger.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when non-Jews are seeing this film, first of all, they're learning a lot, and now they're understanding why we are shaken to our core, because we're showing sort of a historical connection also between the Holocaust and that this has happened before.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's no other place for Jews to go to if there is no Jewish state.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's no place for anyone, like you know, in Israel's not a manifestation of 1948, and we make that clear and we make this connection, understanding what Zionism is, that Zionism is just the civil rights movement for the Jewish people.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: It is not mutually exclusive when it comes to Palestinian rights to their own homeland.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're making a lot of points very clear.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I was obsessed with just packing in data for people.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like I kept saying, There's a lot of data.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's great.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of data, which is why people are seeing the film a couple of times, because every time you see it, you're learning more.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the pacing is so brisk that you need to see it a few times.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I wanted people to sort of eat their broccoli, you know, and understand sort of information and and um into facts and learn while also being really engaged um throughout the hundred minutes of the film.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a lot packed in there to really expose how we got here, but some really important data facts that people just don't know, like the expulsion of the uh the Jewish Arab world, you know, that happened in the 40s and the 50s.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: People just don't know this stuff.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: The people don't know that Jews are not white, you know.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: So there's all of these myths that I'm trying to debunk in the film.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're it's very effective.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just tell me on this front, I was interested.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: You got a really great array of interview subjects and pretty high profile, and very um, you know, whether it's Congressman Ritchie or whether it's Deborah Messing, how hard was it to source your guess?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And how much, you know, and how how did you present it to them in terms of trying to get them on board?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously they've got their own platforms and they're out in the world.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're extraordinary.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Deborah Messing's incredible.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: What was the um mission statement in a sense that you presented to them?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And was it difficult to get them on board?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was not difficult to get these people on board.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, tough to get it on their calendars because everyone's very busy.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but with Deborah, you know, I saw what she was doing on her platform.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: I saw what she was doing on Instagram and that she was so unapologetic and doubling down, calling for a release of the hostages and calling out the bias and the double standards when it comes to Jews in Israel.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, oh, I need Deborah.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: This will really help raise the profile of the film.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And she's just extraordinary in her voice, and she's not new to speaking out about anti-Semitism.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: She's been doing it for a while.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what's so interesting though about Deborah is she had never been to Israel until after October 7th.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: She had never been.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's incredible.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: That I'm I'm amazed because she's so she's so outspoken in terms of her perspective.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so obviously, she's been there now.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And Barry Weiss obviously is an incredible journalist, writer, somebody that just incredible.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: She was hard to book.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: There were definitely people who were tougher to book for sure, and people who I had to stalk uh gently for a long time.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I wanted to make sure that I also had non-Jews in the film.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Very, very important to have non-Jewish voices.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, actually, one of the hardest people to secure an interview date was um Lorenzo Vedino, who's the head of extremism at GW University.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: He's Italian, he's Catholic.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, while he teaches at GW, he's you know, spends a lot of time in Rome or in Milan.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: He's in Italy a lot.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: So he was very hard to um, it was hard to get on his calendar.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but such an essential voice, and he was really a transformative voice in our SJP, our Students for Justice in Palestine scenes where he exposes this this whole Hamas in America going back for decades.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, I told people what the film was about, and I think everyone understood the importance of it and uh the urgency.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, everyone wants to know who else is in the film.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And because I had such a high profile list of characters and names, um, people It wasn't too difficult.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um what so your tech?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what was your tagline?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Was it was it the soul was um it was it the soul of you know protecting the soul of America?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Was that the that came from Richie Torres?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: I came out of his interview when he said stake is the soul of America.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: And as soon as he said that to me, he was my very first interview for this film.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: My very first interview was Richie.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that I wanted him first, and you know, he's progressive and Latino and in and black and gay and a Democrat, um, and is so unapologetic and gets more hate than anyone out there.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I just knew that I needed him.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's incredible.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And when he said in his interview to me, it's the fight for the soul of America.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, right away I was like, wow, that's what this is about.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: That I thought that was powerful.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: That essence and the way you've put that on the tagline of the film at the top.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought that's it.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's and that is a very powerful tagline, I have to say.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I now I recall that he says that in his interview.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so for you personally, you talk about the hate and the how afraid were you about making this film?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: And were you afraid, or were you just unequivocal?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: I was pretty much unequivocal.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have to say that I feel like I was almost like messianic on like a mission of like I have to do this.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: It is all I've thought about for the past, you know, 18 months.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've just been like completely driven and focused on making this film.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've ignored my kids.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: I've just, this is all I've done.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I haven't seen friends.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: I've just been really focused on, first of all, making it, raising the money to make it, keep raising the money to keep making the film, to find distribution.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people would always just say to me, but where's it gonna be?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: How are people gonna see it?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: What's the distribution?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: So first, you know, it was getting the film done.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Then we had a magnificent film, and then it was getting it out in the world.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I blocked out the noise and I just kept going.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I just keep going.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's still more to be done with this.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: The long tail mission of the film is really to get the film into education and to create what we call impact, an impact campaign.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that means taking the film around to non-Jewish audiences and creating conversations.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm raising money for that now.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Super, super important to create a curriculum and teaching materials, cut down the film into sort of bite-sized chunks that can be teachable.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really the long tail mission of the film.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: And now, of course, I've got this follow-up film that I'm planning on starting production this summer because it's so important and also so urgent and timely.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I just uh I'm really just focused.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that, you know, this is my life's work.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I've done a lot of different interesting things in my career.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't always been a filmmaker.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: I've worked in PR, I've worked on Capitol Hill, um, I've worked in television, I've written books, uh, I've done a lot of different things, but nothing has been so important and as urgent and as existential and as powerful to me as making this film.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the highlights of the film was uh getting an insight into the challenges for students.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Tessa, who you interview on the film and who spoke at the live presentation, is so incredible in terms of her strength, her courage, and her articulation about just how targeted she was.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to me a little bit about that and how you found that relationship and certainly showcasing what she'd been through?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd interviewed a lot of other college students.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I interviewed probably about 22, and I interviewed them sort of early on, December of 2023.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: There had been congressional hearings happening, and college students were showing up, and these young people were so poised and so articulate.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: And every time I would see them sort of on the news, I would reach out to them and I would interview them to figure out their stories and you know, you know, you know, uh try to unpack sort of what they were talking about and see if they're gonna be characters in the film.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until February of 2024, so it was a few months later, and Deborah Messing reposts an Instagram post that Tessa had put out, and Tessa's holding up a sign and it says Zionists not allowed.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: And as soon as this appears in the film, and she's standing in front of the multicultural center.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very ironic.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when I see this sign, Zionist Not Allowed, it stops me cold.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: To me, uh, you know, a person of a certain age, when we see that, we see Jew not allowed.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's what the that's what this means to me.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: And immediately I reach out, I go onto, I go onto Instagram, I start DMing Tessa, trying to like, as the kids say, slide into her DM.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually we get we get connected, and I'm stalking her for a bit before we could get connected.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I say, I need to interview you.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately I do, and her story is so powerful.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: She was the president of the student body at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when she ran as president, she had also already been a pro-Israel activist.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was no issue.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: She it was not, you know, a problem for her to get to be elected to the student body.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: But after October 7th, she's now being targeted as a Zionist.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: She's now being harassed and she's bullied.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: She can't even go to her classes, she can't take her final exams in person.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's unbelievable.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the university is doing nothing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this recall election to recall her from her presidency.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, you'll see what happens in the film.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And but she barely makes it through.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just her feelings of a big thing.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: By one vote, doesn't she?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: One vote.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: By one vote, by one vote.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: But she also has, I mean, as far as casting of characters, she also has this incredible backstory because her parents are, you know, they'd fled Ukraine because of so much anti-Semitism.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: And she has a brother who's actually 20 years older than she is.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he was not raised Jewish, you know, and they put they put him in Catholic school when they moved to America.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted nothing to do with their Jewish identity, and they were escaping anti-Semitism.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: And here she is now, you know, 20 years later, and she's um becomes, you know, a someone who has a strong sense of their Jewish identity, but she's so horrified about what her parents are are facing watching what she's encountering.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, she goes on to tell her story as president of the student body, she's supposed to give a commencement speech at graduation, but she decides not to do that because she doesn't want to get harassed or booed or yelled at with her parents sitting there.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was so powerful.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: She is she is just such a she has such an incredible voice, and she's not unique.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there are a lot of other students out there, and there are students who are meeting around the world in North America.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: I spent time on Canadian um campuses at McGill and at Concordia.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, here in Australia, you know, these students are sharing very similar stories.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Here in Australia, I heard about safe rooms that are existing on university campuses because students don't feel safe.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's unbelievable.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: This doesn't happen for any other community.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: You can't even imagine that if you said it's the indigenous community that's being targeted.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, or the black community, yeah.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or the trans community, it would be completely unacceptable.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yet when it comes to Jewish students, somehow it's okay to harass and bully and target the Jews.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: No one seems to care.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's why Tessa was so powerful, but also she spoke so articulately about her journey.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: And to your point, her I mean, the fact that her parents had escaped, you know, for fear of anti-Semitism and this was happening to her in America.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think this that was a very powerful part of the documentary.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was really an incredible highlight and important.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the resonant, one of the things I'm seeing is that the resistance is a lot, you know, the younger generation are finding it, they're a little cynical.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're a little like a lot of there is a lot of that out there, and I'm sure you're seeing that.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: But hopefully, with some interviews like what you feature with Tessa, they start to get some understanding of what it feels like to be Jewish on campus across the world right now.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I that and that's my hope.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I think these young people are really inspiring.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think they are affirming to young people, people are feeling seen.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also giving us hope.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I end the film on hope.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, people always ask me about that, you know, and I always say, you know listen, as a filmmaker, you don't want people to want to jump out of a window after watching your movie.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there is reason to be hopeful.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And these young people really do give me a lot of hope.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: They're, they have a lot of pride, they have a really strong sense of their identity, of moral clarity, their own conviction.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they're inspiring for all of us.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely agree.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you the other thing I've noticed, and that came out of that too, is the non-Jewish community, there are a lot of people who are very supportive, very protective.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: We all have very strong relationships, everybody has into their relationships, we're all part of the fabric of our communities.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as long as we can connect and work with understanding and not allow the loudest, extreme voices to dominate.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I was at university, same happened.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a folder this thick because I was involved with student politics of the anti-Semitism that went on then.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not dissimilar, it's just amplified at this level that I've never seen anything like it.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what the documentary showcases we can change it, we need to educate and we need to maintain hope.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's for the West, not just the Jewish community, but for the West in general.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: Allyship is another way that we close out the film.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: And exactly what you're saying, you know, I think that we do have a lot of allies out there.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there are people who are allowed and there are people who hate, but there are so many more people who just don't know very much and don't know what we're experiencing, don't know the history.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's who this film is for.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: This film, I made this film not for the Jewish community, I made it for everyone else.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm I've been so, you know, really humbled by here in Australia in particular, are the non-Jews who are experiencing the film and talking to me afterwards.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people who are members of parliament, former members of parliament, uh, vice chancellors of universities.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Universities, yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's been extraordinary.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: Heads of businesses, um, the non-Jewish population here in Australia who's coming out to see the film and just saying, wow, this is really impactful.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for making it.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is really important.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you need to show it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: We need to show it to all of the universities.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: We need to have everyone seeing this.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, please come back, please talk more.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's been incredible.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, on that note, I would like to thank you so much for joining us at the What I've Learned podcast.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely extraordinary what you've done.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I I consider your courage, but also your ability to cut through the noise with the film, but also just in person when I speak to you here, but also when I've seen you at some of the live um presentations, that is a skill in itself.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you certainly, and I think it's part of the dialogue, you're articulate, you're capturing, you're dealing with some of the anxiety, a lot of the anxiety, actually, that is out there.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's certainly very timely and much needed documentary.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: So well done, and thank you for coming to Australia.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you are doing a global tour trying to ensure that because your presence is very part of the film, and having the courage to stand up the way you have is very admirable.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much, Wendy.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you so much for having me.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Love Dev.