South Orange writer and director Wendy Sachs was visiting her daughter at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Oct. 7, 2023 as the horrors of Hamas’ attack on Israel unfolded. The next day, as protests against Israel began on college campuses and in the streets of America, Sachs said she was shocked and thought something was seriously wrong.
Within two weeks, she started working on a treatment for a documentary that she tried pitching to news outlets, with no luck. So she set out independently to work on the film that became October H8TE – The Fight for the Soul of America, released last month and screened in Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, New York and on Monday night at the JCC Metrowest in West Orange, New Jersey.
“It’s been an extraordinary journey, making this project,” she told the sold-out crowd at the JCC. “Like many of us here, October 7th was really a generational trauma unleashed. I was shaken to my core. I knew I needed to make this film.”
South Orange filmmaker Wendy Sachs discusses her documentary “October H8TE” before a screening at the JCC Metrowest in West Orange. The film about antisemitism in the U.S. is Academy Awards eligible. (Photo by Laura Griffin)
The Emmy-winning TV news producer, filmmaker and author interviewed 85 people across the country and in London and Israel, pulled together 160 hours of footage, fundraised to pay for it, and partnered with actress Debra Messing to produce and release the film.
“I really put everything I have into this project,” she said. “And I can proudly say we are now contending for an Academy Award — we are Oscar eligible. It’s very exciting. I leave tomorrow morning for Academy Award screenings. We know that the climate in Hollywood and everywhere in America has been either hostile or silent, so we know it’s an uphill battle, but I’m encouraged by the silent support I’ve gotten from Hollywood.”
While the first seven minutes of the film consists of raw footage from October 7 in Israel, and Sachs gave the audience a trigger warning beforehand, the film is really about what came afterward.
“The film is about Oct. 8 through an American lens, not an Israeli experience, it’s really about our own experience — what’s happening on college campuses, what’s happening on social media and what’s happening in the streets of America,” Sachs said.
October H8TE attempts to demonstrate how campus social justice movements in the United States taking up the Palestinian cause ended up aligned with Hamas, a terrorist organization.
Among the 40 interviews that made it into the film are several college students, Messing (who also came on board as an executive producer of the film), comic Michael Rapaport, Israeli actress Noa Tishby, U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sheryl Sandberg, podcasters Dan Senor and Scott Galloway, an NYU professor, and Mosab Yousef, who, as the son of a co-founder of Hamas, has left the family and spoken out about the threat of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Sachs also interviewed experts who track terrorism, extremism and antisemitism, and an Israeli woman who survived the massacre at a Kibbutz.
In a Q&A session after the screening, audience members told Sachs the film needs wide distribution and asked how more people can see it. Sachs said she is raising money for distribution and working to get it released first in theaters in major cities and then on streaming platforms. In addition, she said, she is talking with organizations Hillel and Stand With Us to see about distribution on college campuses, as well as working with non-Jewish groups for screenings to help “correct the narrative” and fight hate.
“Part of the impact campaign is creating these conversations,” she said. “That, to me, is the legacy of the film — it will be creating conversation, changing the dialogue.”
Sachs thanked all the people who helped her make the film and who helped her fund the most important project she’s ever worked on.
“It takes a village,” she said. “It’s been an extraordinary journey, making this project.”
