Brandon Kramer’s festival-acclaimed documentary “Holding Liat” opens on the Israeli-American Yehuda Beinin receiving information that his middle-age daughter, Liat, is still alive after she and her husband, Aviv, were kidnapped from their kibbutz in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Yehuda vents about “crazy people” leading both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, and Kramer’s often surprising film proceeds to air the differing viewpoints among Yehuda, his wife and his family in the wrenching weeks that follow.
Anxious to do something, Yehuda joins an Israeli delegation to Washington that is intended to keep the crisis top of mind among U.S. politicians and organizations. He argues against weaponizing the situation for warmongering aims, which puts him at odds with the trip’s messaging and his companions. His daughter Tal, who lives in Portland, Ore., just wants to help her sister, whatever publicity is necessary, while Liat and Aviv’s son Netta, who was present during the attacks led by Hamas, states simply: “They need to die.”
What follows are many anguished nights of waiting for word of Liat and Aviv’s fate, and much debate. Kramer’s in-the-moment vérité approach often uses affecting close-ups on faces but also underlines the bigger picture through critiques by Yehuda and, later, his brother, Joel, a professor who discusses the history of kibbutzim and the seizure of Palestinian lands.
For some viewers, Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza might overshadow the film’s focus on the experiences of Yehuda’s family (to whom the filmmaker is distantly related). But by concluding with Liat’s own reflections on the region, Kramer quietly but forcefully recognizes that the conflict cannot continue as it has.
Holding Liat Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.
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