■ Riveting and moving - Haaretz ■ Intriguing, infuriating, and chilling - TIMEOUT Tel Aviv ■
■ Gripping - Jerusalem Post ■ Thought-provoking - Yedioth Ahronoth ■ A film about love, care, and belonging - PRTFL ■
TORN is a feature documentary that captures the emotional fallout of the now-iconic “KIDNAPPED” poster campaign - a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the 251 hostages taken by Hamas after the October 7 attacks. What began as a simple act of solidarity quickly became a flashpoint, igniting fierce confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists and turning New York City’s streets into a battleground of ideology, identity, and grief.
Told through the voices of ten New Yorkers - including artists, activists, and families of hostages — TORN unpacks the motivations behind those putting up and tearing down the posters, exposing a complex proxy war fought in stickers, slogans, and torn paper - thousands of miles from Gaza. The film reveals how a distant war fractured daily life in one of the world’s most diverse cities, challenging the limits of empathy, freedom of speech, and communal solidarity in a time of hyper-polarization.
TORN is a 75-minute independent documentary, filmed and produced in New York City.
“Of all the films I saw at the [Tel Aviv International documentary film] festival ‘DocAviv', Torn stood out as the most urgent and raw in its depiction of the evolving relationship between Israelis, American Jews, and an increasingly diverse urban America—marked by competing moments of solidarity and strain in the global conversation around the Gaza war.”
- Jacob Wirtschafter, journalist
Director’s Statement:
As a filmmaker, I’ve always believed in storytelling as a tool for bridging divides and provoking honest conversation. Torn began as an attempt to capture a moment when my home - New York City, where I’ve lived for the past 12 years-was being pulled apart. Not just by headlines, but by the emotional aftershocks of a war taking place thousands of miles away.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a brutal attack that sparked a devastating war in Gaza with Israel. In the days that followed, two street artists launched a campaign to raise awareness for the 251 hostages taken by Hamas. These weren’t just Israelis-they were, and still are, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and Jews from over 40 nationalities. What began as an act of solidarity quickly spiraled into something far more layered: a symbolic “paper war” that unfolded on the walls of New York.
With Torn, I set out to document the winter of 2023-those raw, disorienting weeks leading up to the first hostage release deal. During that time, the simple act of putting up or tearing down a poster became a political event, sparking confrontations across college campuses, neighborhoods, and social media. Suddenly, the war in Gaza wasn’t distant - it was here, reflected on our lampposts, our subway stations, and in the heated arguments between strangers.
I followed artists, activists, hostage family members, students, and ordinary New Yorkers as they wrestled with identity, grief, and the meaning of public space. My hope - then and now - was that in New York, where we don’t have rockets or missiles flying overhead, we might be able to sit and talk. That we could create space for conversation, even disagreement, without violence.
This film doesn’t shy away from discomfort or complexity. It dwells in the gray areas-between trauma and activism, doxxing and solidarity, freedom of speech and the boundaries of empathy. My aim was to humanize those caught in the emotional crossfire.
At every screening I’ve held over the past year, I’ve used this film as a platform to call for an immediate end to the war-and for the urgent release of the 50 hostages who remain in Gaza, still held by Hamas. That call will not stop.
In an era defined by polarization, Torn is both a mirror and a spark: a reflection of how far we’ve drifted apart, and an invitation to sit, reflect, and speak-even across disagreement.
Nim Shapira
Director & Producer
www.nimshap.com
Cast & Crew
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Alana Zeitchik - Hostage Family Member (Interviewee)
Alana is an Israeli-American advocate, speaker, and writer based in Brooklyn. She serves as the Executive Director of The Narrow Bridge Project, a non-profit organization that brings young Jewish people together for courageous dialogue across differing perspectives.
On October 7, 2023, seven of her family members were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Two of them, Ariel and David Cunio, remain captive by Hamas.
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Liam Zeitchik - Hostage Family Member (Interviewee)
Liam, a New Yorker, is directly connected to the tragic events of October 7, 2023, when seven members of his family were taken hostage to Gaza. Two of them, Ariel and David Cunio, are still held by Hamas.
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Nitzan Mintz & Dede BandAid - Street Artists (Interviewees)
Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz are renowned Israeli street artists, now residing and working on their art in New York. As a creative duo, they amplify their narratives by blending imagery and words, engaging audiences in thought-provoking ways. Together, they create a distinctive fusion of visual art and poetry, fostering dialogue on complex social and political issues.
On October 7, 2023, they, along with Tal Huber, created the KIDNAPPED FROM ISRAEL poster campaign.
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Julia Simon - College Student (Interviewee)
Julia is a student at Parson’s School of Design in New York City, studying art history and abstract painting. For the last year and a half, she has used her art to highlight the Jewish and Israeli experience, spark discussions among her classmates, combat antisemitism on campus, and raise awareness for the hostages and their release.
Julia’s childhood friend, Omer Neutra, was killed by Hamas on October 7 and his body is held in Gaza.
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Nina Mogilnik - Activist (Interviewee)
Nina, a writer based in New York, shifted her focus from a successful career in philanthropy, NYC government, and the nonprofit sector to dedicate more time to her family and personal interests. Her passion for writing now drives her to support Jewish authors by reviewing books for the Jewish Book Council.
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Elisha Fine - Activist (Interviewee)
Elisha Fine is a social worker and Jewish activist based in NYC. He is currently writing an oral history of the Sticker Campaign, collecting testimonies from grassroots advocates of the hostage movement worldwide
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Chen Levy - Activist (Interviewee)
Chen moved to New York three decades ago to study jewelry design at FIT and later opened her boutique in Midtown Manhattan. She is now the owner and designer of Christi Sothers NYC, a high-end fashion jewelry brand. Chen’s work has garnered a loyal global clientele and media attention, including a recent collection inspired by Jewish pride and resilience.
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Rabbi Yehuda Sarna (Interviewee)
Rabbi Sarna serves as the Executive Director of the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at New York University (NYU) and the Hannah and Ed Low Professor at the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism. He is also the Senior Religious Advisor to the Moses ben Maimon Synagogue at the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, a premier interfaith institution.
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Aaron Terr - FIRE, Public Advocacy Director (Interviewee)
Aaron is the Director of Public Advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to defending Americans' rights to free speech and free thought. He has been with FIRE since 2021.
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Nim Shapira - Director, Producer & Writer
Nim is an award-winning filmmaker based in New York. His work has screened at Tribeca Film Festival, TED, SIGGRAPH, Slamdance and exhibited in Cannes’ Marché du Film, and Venice Biennale’s College Cinema. A former fellow at MIT’s Open Documentary Lab, and the NEWMUSEUM’s NEWINC, Nim’s films explore empathy, identity, and the intersection of politics and personal narrative. Torn is his first feature-length documentary.
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Shay Mizrahy - Editor & Writer
Shay is a renowned editor with a strong background in reality television, having worked on shows like "The Voice," "Survivor," and "Big Brother" for Israeli Television. She recently edited "SILVER'S UPRISING", a feature documentary that has garnered critical acclaim, and was selected to DocAVIV and the Warsaw and Cleveland International Film Festivals.
“Nim Shapira’s debut documentary manages to accomplish several complex tasks with minimal manipulation and without resorting to the repetitive imagery of horrors we’ve already seen. First, it presents the story behind the creation of the ‘KIDNAPPED’ posters, which became one of the defining symbols of the war.
Second, it reveals how the act of hanging and tearing down posters across New York City became a political event in itself, escalating into a battle over public space and narrative control. Third, Shapira sits in front of the camera with activists and relatives of abducted families living abroad, exploring the tension between the desire to help and the helplessness of watching events unfold from afar in a sometimes hostile environment.”
— Oron Shamir, Haaretz
