October 7th Attack Documentary ‘Bearing Witness’ Screening Cancelled

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) canceled private Cannes festival screening of the archival documentary Bearing Witness. According to their statement, the film allegedly posed a security risk to the festival.

WestEnd Films co-founder Sharon Harel-Cohen arranged a screening of this film on May 17th for a small group of big industry names. Her invitation described the movie’s sensitive subject matter and explained that they would get the screening’s location the day before it began “for security reasons.”

Harel-Cohen soon revealed the Exclusive Hotel Belle Plage and warned the invited not to share the location with anyone. However, the screening was canceled after receiving word from the IDF that the film posed a security threat. “There’s not much you can do. When you get word that there is a security issue from the IDF, that’s it. It was an opportunity. It’s really a pity,“ Harel-Cohen mused.

Bearing Witness covers the October 7th attack by Hamas against Israel. It would be told through body cam footage and CCTV captures and shows various perspectives on what happened that day.

The 47-minute documentary suffered from past screening issues thanks to its volatile topic and the real-world events creating these reactions. On the same day as the Cannes screening, the film was also set to be screened in a private Paris location, but it was soon canceled after news broke of several hostages from the film turning up dead.

It had a successful screening in November in Los Angeles, but it was soon overwhelmed by many protests from both sides of the conflict. As soon as the screening was finished, violence broke out outside.

Due to this serious, complex topic, Cannes decided to keep everything relatively apolitical and focus more on film instead. With all that has happened, Harel-Cohen will not offer a second screening, potentially putting more people in danger.