Toronto film festival, before effort to cancel movie about Oct. 7 attacks, received funding to promote 'interfaith understanding'

Toronto's prestigious film festival, facing criticism for trying to cancel a documentary related to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, received funding under a program that promotes "intercultural and interfaith understanding" and a society free of "hate-motivated actions."

The $20,000 grant, made by the Department of Canadian Heritage through its Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program, encouraged TIFF to "engage in activities or initiatives that address any form of racism or religious discrimination and promote Canada's multicultural reality." The money appears to have been spent on a November event commemorating the anniversary of Viola Desmond's 1946 stand against racial segregation. Desmond, a business person and civil-rights activist, refused to vacate a whites-only seat in a New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, theatre.

Officials of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last week reversed the decision to withdraw the film, The Road Between Us: the Ultimate Rescue, after Jewish groups protested what they considered an attempt to marginalize Jewish and Israeli perspectives. At issue, according to TIFF, were the terms under which the festival would allow screenings of the movie, which recounts the efforts of a retired Israeli general to save family members and others in the immediate aftermath of the massacre and hostage takings. The film is directed by Canadian Barry Avrich.

The invasion by Hamas, whose fighters killed 1,200 and took 250 hostages, sparked a war that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans and almost 900 Israeli soldiers fighting terrorists that the Jewish state says use civilians as human shields.

Among the heritage program's four objectives are ones to "advance anti-racism, foster ethnocultural diversity and inclusion and promote intercultural and interfaith understanding" and "promote dialogue on multiculturalism, anti-racism, racial equity, diversity, and inclusion to advance institutional and systemic change so that Canada becomes a more inclusive society, free from racism and hate-motivated actions."

Officials at TIFF, begun in 1976 and among the world's largest film festivals., did not respond within one day to an email query sent to the press office. This year's festival runs between Sept. 4 and Sept. 14.

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