Two years after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the war in Gaza endures, but two scripted retellings of the war’s inciting incident premiered on major Hollywood streamers in time to honor its second anniversary Tuesday.
These dramatic depictions of the day Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 captives back to Gaza, 20 of whom are thought to still be alive today, are fresh for many worldwide. At a time when a sector of Hollywood has stood staunchly against Israel and cease-fire negotiations are underway between Israel and Hamas, Paramount+ and HBO Max made the choice to tell these Israeli stories, platforming the series “Red Alert” and “One Day in October.”
As opposed to documentary footage of the deadly day, the series used scripted storytelling to depict the tragedies of Oct. 7. Both productions leaned on survivors as consultants and research guides for their respective projects, healing alongside the subjects themselves.
That the two shows were able to debut on the anniversary date is a testament to the nimbleness of the productions teams, both of whom got started mere months after the attack. The point of both shows was to tell human stories rather than make political statements, the creators told TheWrap. As the war in Israel and Palestine continues to polarize political affinities, they said that their dramatic depictions seek to unite people under an umbrella of humanity.
“We walked into rooms where the word Israel alone could instantly change the temperature. But what ultimately broke through to HBO Max was the humanity of the story,” “One Day in October” creator Daniel Finkelman told TheWrap. “‘One Day in October’ was never framed as a political piece. It was always about the human story and the human spirit. It’s about pain, survival, love and moral courage — things that transcend borders and politics.”
“We wanted to show the truth to understand why we are here today,” “Red Alert” executive producer Lawrence Bender told TheWrap. “Something happened, and people need to understand what the truth was. It felt like it was my mission to tell their stories.”
A Tight Deadline
For Bender, debuting his scripted miniseries domestically in time for the second anniversary felt out of the realm of possibility. As tensions over Israeli filmmakers remained heightened in Hollywood, the Academy Award-winning producer did not think now was the right time. From a practical perspective, the film was not close to being ready.
Bender credits Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, for pushing the film across the finish line. He mentioned the series to the executive at a memorial service for lawyer Skip Brittenham on September 3 and Ellison asked to see it immediately.
“I would never dream that this could be ready for Oct. 7,” Bender told TheWrap. “I didn’t even think we could do it, nor did my team in Israel.”
After Paramount acquired “Red Alert” in late September, Bender and his Israeli production team had 10 days to lock the project ahead of Yom Kippur and the network’s deadline.
Bender was attached to the project from the onset. He collaborated with writer-creator Lior Chefetz, who came up with the idea to intertwine several Israeli’s collective experiences of Oct. 7. The series focuses on Nova Music Festival attendees; a counterterrorism team leader and his wife; a Gazan living in Israel; a family with young children living at the Nir Oz kibbutz and a single mother protecting her adult children.
“We didn’t have the 50-year perspective looking back at the events when we started our research,” Chefetz told TheWrap. “It was three months after Oct. 7, so when we met with the survivors, everything was very fresh.”
Because of the raw tenor of the project, Chefetz and his production team interviewed countless survivors and became friends with them in order to earn their trust and tell their stories accurately. Survivors also joined the Israeli production team on location, oftentimes near where the actual tragedy took place. Chefetz said shooting where the action took place was essential in telling the most truthful story possible.
“Reality is far more interesting than what screenwriters can come up with. So all those little bits and pieces are actually based on real people, and it was really helpful to write this engaging story,” Chefetz said.
“We did an enormous amount of research — every detail. Down to what they were wearing, what was on the nightstand table,” Bender added. “Being accurate was a really important thing to us. And at the same time, we’re making a TV show, so we had to adjust things for TV, but every time we adjusted something and we changed something, we called the people and said, ‘Here’s what we’re doing.’ ”
Though real, unfiltered footage from the events of Oct. 7 was readily available on social media and security cameras, “Red Alert” made the conscious choice to use the footage sparingly, saying it can be a “double-edged sword.” The series kept the true gore of the day to a minimum, just enough for audiences to understand the tragedy, but nowhere near the scale of reality and what documentaries depicted.
“On one hand, it’s very strong, and it shows that the story we’re telling is accurate,” Chefetz said of the raw footage. “On the other hand, we’re breaking the language of scripted television, so we’re pulling the audience a little bit out of our show when you’re switching from documentary footage to a reenactment.”
Survivors Were Essential
Finkelman and his Israeli production team started development on the seven-episode “One Day in October” just two months after the Oct. 7 attack. Integrating survivors into the storytelling was critical. They approved scripts, reviewed details and many said retelling their stories was healing.
As opposed to “Red Alert,” the HBO Max drama — a coproduction by Fox Entertainment and Israel’s Yes TV — is an anthology series depicting seven different perspectives from that harrowing day. For the “One Day in October” team, the anthology format gave them a greater ability to diversify the voices they amplified.
One episode followed two young women who took shelter in port-a-potties as the Nova Music Festival grounds were raided. Another follows a mother whose world is turned upside down when Hamas murdered her husband and eldest son.
The production included survivors they consulted for each episode in the credits of the project, showing them embrace the actors who depicted them on-screen and peering at monitors behind the scenes.
“Seeing them at the end of the credits serves as a reminder that what audiences just watched isn’t fiction. These are their stories,” Finkelman said. “At first, many survivors were understandably hesitant to revisit their trauma – but over time, these families opened their homes and their hearts so we could tell their truth responsibly. “
Producer Chaya Amor told TheWrap that it was important to the team to acknowledge how diverse Israel is and the broad range of people affected by the attacks “from Bedouins to LGBTQ” people. The producer described their series as “’Black Mirror’ meets ‘Schindler’s List.’”
“I thought maybe it would be hard to relive your story. But actually, the survivors, almost unanimously, have said that it was really healing for them to relive the story,” Amor said. “That was comforting for us to know that we’re not exploiting their stories.”
For Finkelman, creating a scripted series was essential in cementing these survivor’s stories in history, and to remind audiences that the conflict in the Middle East is not simply statistics but real people who have been impacted.
“As a filmmaker born in Israel, I felt a responsibility to preserve the voices before time and politics destroyed them,” Finkelman said. “I wanted to create something that makes audiences feel what history sometimes makes us forget: the chaos, the intimacy, the impossible choices of that day.”
“Red Alert” and “One Day in October” are now streaming on Paramount+ and HBO Max, respectively.
