Berlin festival seeks to bury Gaza row with Israeli hostage film

The Berlin film festival premiered a documentary about an Israeli hostage held by Hamas on Friday as it seeks to move on from controversy over its stance on Gaza at last year's edition.

"A Letter to David" by Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval is a tribute to David Cunio, who was taken by Palestinian militant group Hamas from the Nir Oz kibbutz on 7 October, 2023, and is still being held hostage in Gaza, AFP reports.

Shoval had previously featured Cunio and his twin brother Eitan in his award-winning debut feature film "Youth", which premiered at the Berlinale in 2013. In the new film, screening in the festival's Special category, Shoval uses excerpts from "Youth" alongside unseen footage and interviews with Cunio's family members to create a tribute to his missing friend.

They include David's twin brother Eitan, his mother, and his wife Sharon Cunio and twin daughters -- who were also captured by Hamas fighters on 7 October but released after 52 days.

Shoval said he had decided to make the film because he did not want David to be perceived as just "a hostage you see on a poster".
"He is also a real person. He was an actor at some point in his life, he has a family, he has a mother, he has a father. He exists not only as an image," Shoval told AFP.

"It was very important to me to convey this, and also to show the pain that the family is going through.”

In the film, David's twin Eitan shows a tattoo of stars on his wrist -- which David also has -- as he talks about his brother, hunched over and smoking a cigarette. Eitan also takes the viewer on a tour of his and David's old homes in the kibbutz, giving a harrowing blow-by-blow account of what happened to them on 7 October.or Eitan, being separated from his brother has been "like being torn apart" and he is "not the same person any more", Shoval said.