Gebrueder Beetz Unveils Hamas Attacks, Netanyahu Docs

Award-winning Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion is prepping a 45-minute special, One Day in October, about the Hamas attack on the music festival in Israel on October 7, with the film set to air on ZDF and ARTE within the next two weeks, filmmakers Duki Dror and Reinhardt Beetz tell World Screen Newsflash.

The team behind One Day in October, which LEONINE Studios-owned Gebrueder Beetz is distributing, also includes Yossi Bloch, whose credits include Netflix’s The Devil Next Door and Noam Pinchas, known for VPRO’s Murky Skies. The producers had a team on the ground by the Monday after the horrific attack on the music festival in the desert that claimed the lives of 260 people, with more than 100 hostages taken.

Beetz, CEO of Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion, has worked on several projects with Dror, an award-winning filmmaker whose credits include Inside the Mossad. Dror, who is based in Israel, was able to have a team on-site within days of the attacks to speak to survivors, including the American DJ who organized the music festival. “We are the only ones on the ground,” Beetz tells World Screen. “The 45-minute special in the works is just the beginning,” Beetz notes, “with a a limited series and longer production being developed to take a deep dive into the horrific attacks by Hamas.”

“Our documentary instincts told us to start filming the survivors and get testimony from them, continue getting the social media [footage] and start putting it together as soon as possible,” Dror tells World Screen. Beetz notes: “We have sent out film crews to document this event as it unfolds in real time. It is a major international story that will echo for years ahead.”

For Dror, it’s been an emotionally draining experience. “I had some regrets two or three days ago,” he says. “I thought, I cannot emotionally do this. It’s too much to face these traumatized people. It’s very difficult for us to do that. Many people would not want to do it; we’re trying to be very careful as we get the testimonies. We’re conscious of how we conduct these interviews. [Recounting] what happened is part of their way of healing.”

Dror and his team have been busy sourcing footage from the attacks while also interviewing survivors. “It’s not usual for documentary filmmakers to be in this process gathering so much material and shooting it out to the world.”

The multi-award-winning team led by Bloch, Dror, Dana Wolfe—formerly of ABC’s Nightline—and Beetz are also collaborating on The Netanyahu Paradox, a 90-minute high-end documentary for the international market taking a deep dive into the leadership style and politics of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, a project that has been in the works for a year and a half that now has a new level of urgency given the situation in Israel.

Beetz notes: “It is hard to underestimate the dramatic magnitude of Benjamin Netanyahu. The once golden boy of Israeli diplomacy was on the verge of dangerously transforming the fragile Israeli democracy into an autocracy. He is considered one of the most talented and shrewd politicians in history, but also the most divisive, manipulative and dangerous one. Nothing will stop him from being the man on top while destroying his enemies… and best allies.”

Working in secret for the last year and a half, now is the time to share the project to the international broadcasters and streamers.

“It’s a biography about him and his failures,” Beetz says, with plans to complete the project in 2024 for a rollout “as soon as possible for airing one year after a night-long trance-music nature party in the desert turned into a vicious bloodbath,” he notes.