New documentary captures street wars over Israeli hostage posters in NYC

Critics have praised “Torn” for its emotional impact and remarkably fast production timeline.

By Aaron Sull, Jewish Breaking News

A powerful new documentary exposes how the aftermath of October 7 tore through New York’s streets, as 251 faces of kidnapped Israelis somehow became the most controversial images in the city.

Rather than focusing on Gaza, American-Israeli filmmaker Nim Shapira deliberately kept war footage to a minimum.

Instead, “Torn” follows the grassroots “KIDNAPPED FROM ISRAEL” poster campaign that emerged following Hamas’s brutal attack, documenting the street clashes between pro-Israel supporters hanging posters and pro-Hamas activists ripping them off.

“It zigzags between hostage families, protests, social media feeds, rabbis, activists, civil libertarians, and people doxxed for tearing posters down, while layering in news coverage from across the spectrum, from Al Jazeera to Fox News,” Shapira told The Hollywood Reporter.

“My goal was to capture the city’s raw cacophony-alive, grieving, angry, divided– so the film feels immediate, messy, and contradictory, just like New York itself.”

Julia Simon Simon, a Parsons School of Design student, appears prominently after her childhood friend Omer Neutra was killed by Hamas on October 7.

Social worker Elisha Fine documents his activism while writing an oral history of the awareness campaign. Hostage families, rabbis, and the mysterious Bandaid artist round out a cast wrestling with identity and grief.

Critics have praised “Torn” for its emotional impact and remarkably fast production timeline.

After opening September 5 in New York and September 12 in Los Angeles, the documentary has screened at major festivals including Chelsea Film Festival’s East Coast Premiere, Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, and Miami Jewish Film Festival.

Co-written with editor Shay Mizrahy, who worked on reality shows like “The Voice” and “Survivor,” the eye opening film marks Shapira’s first feature-length documentary after previous work at TED, Tribeca, and Cannes.