First TV drama about October 7 to debut on anniversary of massacre

The first drama series about the events of Oct. 7, One Day in October, will premiere on the first anniversary of the outbreak of the war on Yes Drama, as well as on Yes VOD and Sting+. This anthology series features four episodes, one more harrowing and fascinating than the next, all based on real events.

While we have seen news clips and interviews about that day, this series dramatizes them to great effect. While we know bits and pieces of all the stories, watching them play out in full will change your perspective. You will relate to the people on screen as characters, not as interviewees or figures in a news report, and this makes them even more engrossing.

The series was created by Daniel Finkelman, a US-based producer, who has made such films as the charming Yiddish-language drama Menashe, and the upcoming The Performance starring Jeremy Piven. Finkelman partnered with Oded Davidoff, who also directed it and who has helmed such series as The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem and The Malevolent Bride. Asked why he chose to make the series, Finkelman said that as a Jew who was born in Israel, he was deeply affected by the events of Oct. 7 and couldn’t continue as usual.

“After Oct. 7, I realized that when you know what you are willing to die for, you know what you are ready to live for,” he said. “I realized what we are fighting for.”

It was important for him to tell stories that would have a real impact, not only on Israelis, but on audiences around the world. He said he understood that the power of the news to tell the true stories of what happened that day was limited.

“We’re being shown real footage on the news of people being abducted and no one gives a f***,” he said. “So we thought, let’s tell the narrative the way people like to be entertained… People said it’s too soon… But a whole narrative was created instantly right after October 7,” that showed Israel as an aggressor, fighting the people of Gaza for no reason, with no mention of Hamas and the massacre. “So I said we’re going ahead with this now, against all odds.”

ALTHOUGH EACH episode has a very different tone, they are all filled with nerve-wracking suspense and show you the events of the day through the eyes of different characters, with each installment concluding with the actors meeting the real people they portray. Each one is moving on its own, and together they create a vivid picture of that tragic day.

The first episode, Trust, stars Naomi Levov as cyclist Aya Korem, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri who was out for an early bike ride when Hamas attacked. As she ran from the terrorists, she came across Hisham (Wael Hamdun), and had to make the split-second decision to trust a Muslim stranger.

Levov became a star with her performance as poet Yona Wallach in Nir Bergman’s Yona, and she often plays gutsy types, which made her well suited for Aya. But she is more than just tough in Trust. She also portrays Aya’s constantly shifting emotions as she tries to stay in touch with family, knowing that the terrorists have overrun Be’eri and not knowing whether her loved ones are alive. One Day in October is Hamdun’s first major movie role, and it should turn him into a star. Like Aya, Hisham goes through a gamut of emotions on that day, never knowing what to do next, but well aware that any false move he makes could lead to both of their deaths.

THE SECOND episode is highly cinematic. Sunrise tells the story of two BFFs, Amit (Swell Ariel Or) and Gali (Noa Kedar), who head to the Supernova Music Festival with joyful anticipation, hoping to dance and get high, and who hide from the terrorists in a portable toilet. That might sound claustrophobic, or something so hair-raising you wouldn’t want to sit through it, but it features riveting, inventive story-telling, which shifts from the perspective of Amit, who somehow keeps her wits about her, to Gali, who is stoned out of her mind. What shines through the whole episode is the love these two feel for each other, and the way they keep each other’s spirits up, as only best friends can.

“I can’t believe it’s ending like this, in a pile of shit,” says Amit at one point, and you’ll laugh with both of them, even if you are fighting back tears.

One of Israel’s rising stars, Swell Ariel Or recently appeared in Keren Nechmad’s Kissufim, the story of the kibbutz near the Gaza border in the late 1970s, and she is probably best known as Luna in The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. Kedar, who was in The Malevolent Bride, is convincingly goofy as Gali, and makes you believe that she manages to find beauty in this grim situation.

THE THIRD episode, Ambulance 54 (which was directed by Finkelman), is about Avi Jian (Yuval Semo), a Hatzalah paramedic and bakery worker from Jerusalem, who took a box of cookies he had brought home for the Simchat Torah holiday, jumped into his ambulance when the sirens sounded and headed south with his partner, Emmanuel (Avi Azulay). Along the way, they encountered indescribable chaos and carnage, and were forbidden by their supervisors from heading into the worst of the fighting. Led by Avi, they disregarded this command, saving the lives of dozens. Along the way, they picked up another Hatzalah volunteer named Avi (Naveh Tzur), a DJ with less experience. This episode highlights how ordinary people stepped up and became heroes that day.

Yuval Semo is always so funny on Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country) and in The Good Cop, and here he gives an understated but totally compelling dramatic performance that could change the course of his career.

Depicting October 7

THE FOURTH episode, which has not yet been released to the press and which will be shown on Yes on October 27, is called What Took Place. Finkelman said that it focuses on the Taasa family in Netiv Ha’assara. Their story is already famous because actual footage of it was included in the so-called atrocity film that was compiled by the government. That clip showed Gil Taasa, the father, throwing himself on his sons to save them, as a terrorist lobbed a grenade at them, and showed his terrified, bewildered sons trying to cope. Their mother, Sabine, played by Yael Abecassis, was estranged from their father at the time of the attack, although she lived next door. In the episode, she questions why she and her husband split up, and reevaluates their relationship in the aftermath of the tragedy while on a trip to Paris.

“There were so many stories, it wasn’t easy to choose these,” said Finkelman. He is already planning a second season, which will broaden the scope to feature stories of antisemitism around the world.

In addition to Finkelman, the producers include Chaya Amor (The Performance), Aviv Ben-Shlush (Shtisel), Lee Ben-Shlush Kuperman (Highway 65) and Fox Entertainment Studios head Fernando Szew, who brought the project to Fox. One Day in October was made by Fox Entertainment Studios, Yes TV, Israel ZOA Films, and Finkelman’s Sparks Go company. He also credits Tzvi Gellman, an investor who came aboard early, for helping to get the project off the ground.

Finkelman, who wrapped himself in an Israeli flag as he walked the red carpet at the Rome Film Festival last year with his movie The Performance – and wore a tuxedo adorned with a Star of David – said that, “For all of us, there is before October 7 and after October 7… These stories are not political, but they’re human-interest stories. I hope they will change people’s mind-set.