Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again – 'blistering' documentary 'unfolds like a disaster movie'

Yariv Mozer's 'visceral' film features mobile phone footage captured by survivors of Hamas attack at the Nova music festival

Nova Music Festival, still from Surviving October 7th.
The film shines a light on the experience of the 'utterly defenceless' Israeli citizens at the Nova music festival that day
(Image credit: BBC / Sipur / Bitachon365 / MGM)

"I can't, in any ordinary sense, recommend Yariv Mozer's 90-minute Storyville documentary, 'Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again'", said Rachel Cooke in The New Statesman. "It will destroy you; sleep was impossible for me afterwards."

But the film – part of a collection marking the anniversary of 7 October – is "astonishing". Featuring mobile phone videos from terrified festival-goers, interviews with survivors and Hamas bodycam footage, the harrowing documentary illuminates the "true horror" of the attack.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Despite a caption highlighting the "catastrophic human cost" of the attack, neither the "bloody aftermath" nor the "staggering security failures" are Mozer's primary focus, added Jasper Rees in The Telegraph. His subject is "raw, pure, uncut" terror – "as it happened and as it is traumatically relived by those who saw it, felt it and were somehow hardwired to document it on smartphones".

In one of the most horrific clips in this "blistering" film, IDF footage shows a "massacre of the innocents among the Coca-Cola-branded fridges" by the main sound stage. For anyone planning to watch Storyville's upcoming sister film, "Life and Death in Gaza", this is an essential watch. "And, it should go without saying, vice versa."

Explore More

Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.