New film 'October 7: Bearing Witness to the Massacre' confronts horrors of attack

More than a year after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, filmmaker Justin Kron is releasing a deeply personal and historically grounded documentary titled “October 7: Bearing Witness to the Massacre.”

In an interview with Christian journalist Paul Calvert, Kron shared his motivation for the project: to confront the denial, distortion, and erroneous justifications that emerged in the aftermath of the massacre.

“We made this film because we wanted to document history,” Kron said, recalling how several prominent international organizations, including more than 30 Harvard student groups, issued derogatory statements blaming Israel within hours of the Hamas attack. He emphasized the necessity of truth-telling in an era of widespread misinformation: “We were startled, really.”

The film features survivors' stories, including emotional accounts from the Nova Music Festival, where over 350 people were murdered. Kron recounted an interaction with one survivor named Eden, who had bonded with a Holocaust survivor. “I know why you had that immediate connection is because you both faced the same type of enemy,” he told her, comparing Hamas’ ideology with Nazi antisemitism.

What sets “October 7: Bearing Witness to the Massacre” apart is its undeterred documentation. The film uses authentic footage from Hamas, which Kron and his team sourced from social media.

“It’s a massacre captured on film,” he said. “We do blur out things that need to be blurred, and cut things where they need to be cut, just you know...so that there's not too much trauma for the audience, but I think it’s important that people see what happened.”

The film also examines the history of Gaza, including Israel’s 2005 Gaza Disengagement Plan – a unilateral decision by the Israeli government to withdraw all Israeli civilians and military forces from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank – and the rise of Hamas. It challenges the narrative of perpetual occupation and portrays Israel as a nation constantly forced to defend itself.

For Kron, the filmmaking process was emotionally draining at times. Yet, he said he was compelled to continue.

“I felt like what we were doing was sacred work, helping to tell the story and to preserve the memory of the lives that had been taken from us way too early.”

“October 7: Bearing Witness to the Massacre” is scheduled for a U.S. theatrical release in mid-September, with global streaming to follow in October.

Kron’s prayer is that hostages be returned, that Iran’s regime would fall and that “peace would emerge.”

The film's trailer and the first 21 minutes are now available at october7film.com.

Click below to listen to the full interview.