HOLDING LIAT follows the family of Liat, who was violently abducted from her kibbutz by members of Hamas on October 7, 2023, as they try to cope with the situation. The director, a relative of the family, accompanies her parents, Yehuda and Chaya, to Washington, where they seek political support for her release. At the same time, he highlights the different perspectives within the family. Brandon Kramer is a filmmaker based in Washington, D.C., and co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures with his brother Lance.
The jury explained its decision as follows: “Sometimes a film can do something that nothing else seems to be able to do. A family decides to open their door to a film team in the worst moment of their lives. The directors treat this gesture not only with care and respect for this particular family's pain but also for a collective pain. It creates a space where the complexities of violence and justice and the contradictions of history are not silenced but brought forward… HOLDING LIAT shows the path not of revenge but of humanity where we are challenged to look beyond the fence and care rather than kill our neighbors.”
