Anat Stalinsky, the Israeli television director who helmed Screams Before Silence, a documentary about the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas during the October 7 massacre and later against the hostages in Gaza, feels like she is living in two war zones. One is all around her, in the country where she has lived for nearly 33 years; the other is far away in Ukraine, where she was born and where her father still lives.

The 41-year-old mother of two young children got stuck in Germany with her family for two weeks after October 7.

At the time, both despite and because of her visual sensibilities as a director, she opted not to watch any videos or news clips of the horrors. She read everything but didn’t want to dive into the visual aspect. That changed, she says, when she got home and was approached to make this film.

 

Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta chief operating officer who is the presenter of the film—interviewing the survivors, first responders and experts—extolled Stalinsky in a brief telephone interview as “a brilliant and phenomenal director and human being.”

I spoke with Stalinsky—whose most recent Israeli television series, Sovietzka, received critical acclaim—in a Tel Aviv hotel over coffee, after she addressed the I Believe Israeli Women delegation in May.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Why did you make this documentary?

The most horrible experience any human being can have is feeling helpless. I couldn’t walk to Gaza to help the hostages. When I was approached to direct this project, I felt I was able to use my professional skills, the gift that God gave me, to tell an important story. This became the most important project of my life. When you do something like this, it has a heavy emotional price to pay. I’m still in the process of recovering from hearing all the stories. It didn’t go by me; it went through me.

How did the project come about?

The initiative behind the project came from [Israeli public relations expert] Eytan Schwartz, who had been volunteering soon after October 7 to bring foreign journalists to the South. He began hearing reports of sexual violence from first responders and others but no one was really talking about it publicly. [Schwartz took the idea to Meny Aviram, CEO of the Kastina Communications production company, who asked Stalinsky to direct.] We approached Sheryl, and she immediately said yes. It was made very quickly, within a few months. I knew we had to make it really fast, first of all because of the hostages [and the sexual violence they are being subjected to].

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READ MORE:
Fighting to Hold Hamas Accountable
October 7 Survivors Will Not Be Silenced

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What impact do you hope Screams Before Silence will have?

The film makes you bear witness to what happened, which has a lot of meaning, and if more people bear witnesses to that, something will change. You cannot stay the same after watching the film, and you cannot look away.

How did you decide what to include and what not to?

The film is not graphic visually. It was a decision I made. The graphic things that the viewer sees is through watching Sheryl look at them. I’m not showing you the ZAKA person’s graphic pictures, but you will see Sheryl’s reaction and hear what he is saying. You don’t need to see the corpses.

What has the general reaction been?

Everyone who watches it says it changed them. It’s very compelling, very powerful, people are crying a lot. It’s not only about the shoah, [the Hebrew word for catastrophe that is most often used to describe the Holocaust], but it also sheds light on the heroes.

What has been the distribution plan?

We went on YouTube because we knew we wanted the film to reach as many people as possible. This is the largest free platform. It’s also on Twitter [X] and on our website. Some two million have seen it so far. We have arranged screenings all over the world. More people need to see it. 

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Lisa Hostein is the executive editor of Hadassah Magazine.