The film, directed by Barry Avrich, chronicles the courageous actions of retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, who rescued his family and others during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The festival cited unmet general requirements, including legal clearance of footage, as the reason for withdrawing the invitation. TIFF also noted concerns about potential disruptions due to the sensitive subject matter.

The documentary focuses on Tibon's mission to save his family, including his two granddaughters, who were surrounded by Hamas terrorists. It also highlights his efforts to rescue survivors of a music festival massacre and assist wounded Israeli soldiers. The story first gained attention through a 60 Minutes segment in October 2023. TIFF's decision to pull the film stems from its terms, which allow disqualification of any film deemed not in the festival's best interest, as stated by a TIFF spokesperson to Deadline: "TIFF may disqualify from participation in the Festival any Film that TIFF determines in its sole and absolute discretion would not be in TIFF's best interest to include in the Festival."

The filmmaking team expressed dismay to Deadline, stating: "We are shocked and saddened that a venerable film festival has defied its mission and censored its own programming by refusing this film. Ultimately, film is an art form that stimulates debate from every perspective that can both entertain us and make us uncomfortable. A film festival lays out the feast and the audience decides what they will or won't see. We are not political filmmakers, nor are we activists; we are storytellers. We remain defiant, we will release the film, and we invite audiences, broadcasters, and streamers to make up their own mind, once they have seen it."

Sources informed Deadline that TIFF's decision was influenced by fears of disruptive protests during the festival, running September 4-14. A similar issue arose last year with the antiwar documentary Russians at War, which faced backlash from Ukrainian diplomats and activists, prompting TIFF to halt screenings temporarily before showing it post-festival with heightened security. In the case of "The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue", filmmakers believed the documentary would be announced in TIFF's lineup on August 6, but festival insiders clarified it had not met requirements.

TIFF initially invited the film on July 14, contingent on specific conditions. The festival requested a title change from "Out of Nowhere: The Ultimate Rescue", which the filmmakers accepted. TIFF also asked for identification of the source of graphic footage livestreamed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which was publicly available. The festival clarified to Deadline that it did not request editorial changes but sought confirmation of legal clearance. The filmmakers provided an errors and omissions insurance letter naming TIFF as insured and were asked to submit a legal reporting letter and additional security measures.

On August 6, TIFF's lawyer requested evidence of indemnification, a legal letter, and an insurance certificate, with a third screening planned for August 8 to verify compliance. On Monday, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey urged the producers to withdraw the film, a request they refused, according to sources speaking to Deadline.

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Iran's judicial authorities reportedly banned a newspaper Monday for publishing a front-page graphic that appeared to show Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's hand drawing the poverty line in the Islamic Republic amid widespread anger over the nation's cratering economy.

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The semiofficial Mehr news agency said Iran's media supervisory body shut down the daily newspaper Kelid after it published a front-page article titled "Millions of Iranians Living under Poverty Line" on Saturday.

Under the headline, the graphic shows a person's left hand holding a pen and drawing a red line across the page as silhouettes of people underneath are reaching up to the line.

The graphic resembled an earlier image of Khamenei writing on a piece of paper with his left hand, a prominent ring on one of his fingers. His right has been paralyzed since a 1981 bombing.

The Young Journalists Club, a group associated with state television, earlier reported that censors were examining the newspaper after the publication. The state-run IRNA news agency acknowledged Kelid had been shut down, without explaining the reason for the decision.

Kelid could not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. Their website has been taken offline.

Iran, whose state-dominated economy has long faced trouble since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has been under increased pressure since former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

The Iranian rial is now about 281,500 to the dollar – compared with 32,000 rials for $1 at the time when the 2015 nuclear deal was struck. With US sanctions still strangling the economy, record-breaking inflation has hit ordinary Iranians where it hurts most. Stunned shoppers are cutting meat and dairy from their diets, buying less and less each month.

While radio and television stations are all state-controlled in Iran, newspapers and magazines can be owned and published by private individuals. However, Iranian journalists face constant harassment and the threat of arrest in the country, according to press advocacy groups.

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"There's a serious problem with social media sites such as Facebook, which consists of three aspects: transparency, revenue, and control," Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel told Israel Hayom in an interview on Wednesday.

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"The built-in tension is between our recognition of freedom of expression and that the state shouldn't have control over the truth, and between ways this power can be abused. I can tell you we are in earnest discussions with [social media companies]. I've already met with TikTok's management and we are in discussions with Facebook and Twitter, and we are on the way to reaching understandings with them," said Hendel.

Hendel said regulations will be imposed, but that they will be consensual. "These dilemmas exist everywhere in the world. The debate in the United States crosses party lines – the Americans are focusing on the monopoly that's been created. We are learning from them and are trying to develop applicable models."

The communications minister added: "I am definitely not happy with the existing situation. I'm convinced we need to intervene somehow, and ultimately Israel will intervene. I'm in favor of doing this through dialogue.

"If Facebook decides, for example, to block certain citizens, the question is on what basis did they make that decision? They are essentially editing, very similar to editors at a newspaper. We will clear this up," he said.

With that, Hendel supports censorship in certain cases and even states that his ministry is in continuous communication with social media companies about censoring certain content.

"When it comes to 'fake news' from anti-vaxxers, for example, who present unsubstantiated research and false information, it's akin to incitement. This is a matter of life or death.

"On these issues, intervention is absolutely necessary," he says. "Facebook is in continuous contact with us regarding antisemitic content, for instance. When a video is posted of a young Arab man beating a Haredi person in Jerusalem, intervention is certainly called for. The question only pertains to the gray areas."

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Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan, who says Facebook targeted her for her right-wing views, has introduced a bill to give citizens recourse should they find themselves out of favor with social networks.

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"The Social Networks Bill," in its explanatory section, says that while online networks like Facebook want to prevent undesirable phenomena such as radicalization and violence, "it seems that the removal of content and the blocking of users is done arbitrarily, without the users being given the opportunity to understand the reason for the blocking, and without the actual possibility of appealing it."

The bill requires social networks to clearly state their policies for removing content and blocking users by providing "an available response in the Hebrew language for the investigation of complaints" and to provide a way for users to query about removal policies.

The bill also clarifies when users can seek damages in court, permitting "litigation against the social networks operating in Israel under Israeli law, in order to prevent the situation of a legal vacuum in which damages are created without redress."

The proposed law is identical to one introduced by former Likud MK Amit Halevi in November 2020. Distal-Atbaryan decided to resubmit it.

"It's a very important law because what we see now is, on the one hand, privatization of the vehicles of speech, and on the other hand, monopolization of the vehicles of speech," Jerusalem-based attorney Itzhak Bam told JNS. Bam has built a reputation in Israel as an authority on free-speech issues, having represented many free speech cases in court.

Some argue social media networks are private companies and should be allowed to block whom they want, said Bam. However, he explained social media is an oligopoly, with a few companies, like Facebook and Twitter, controlling most of the market.

"If you have two or three major players that provide the playground and those players virtually control your ability to exercise your freedom of speech, and all the discussion of public issues is now happening on social media, blocking speakers on social media affects the democratic process," he said.

"If you had 1,000 different companies competing against each other, you have no justification for the government to step in. But when it's an oligopoly that rules the social-media market and the market affects civil rights, there should be a possibility for citizens, for a private person, to sue them if they silence him," said Bam.

Whether or not social media is specifically targeting those with right-wing views isn't possible to know for certain, he said, because only the companies have that information.  The information "is in the hands of Facebook and Facebook will never release it."

Distal-Atbaryan is certain that only one side of the discourse is in social media's crosshairs. At a June 21 Knesset meeting she organized for Israeli citizens, public figures and fellow Knesset members, she described how she had been warned by Facebook a week earlier that she had violated its "community standards" in a post two weeks beforehand. Her account was temporarily restricted.

JNS reached out to Facebook for comment, but the company didn't reply.

The post that led to the warning was a call in early June to protest at the home of Yamina MK Nir Orbach to convince him to vote against the Bennett-Lapid government. The post included Orbach's home address, which Distal-Atbaryan was informed was what led to the warning.

"What's surprising in this story is that both Left and Right protested in front of the home of Nir Orbach. The posts that advertised the Left's protest were not blocked. The posts that advertised the Right's protest were blocked," she said. "Here's an incident in which it's possible to see it in an almost mathematical way, almost scientific – the same content, blocked on the Right, continuing to run on the Left. This is no longer speculation. … This is real."

Avi Abelow, CEO of Israelunwired.com and Pulseofisrael.com, said that he favored any law that would make social media companies liable for their censorship. On July 1, he told JNS that everyone associated with his business had their personal accounts disabled. "I never received any explanation why we were all terminated. It wasn't like a notice of 'you're in Facebook jail' or 'this post violates this' – nothing. It's just 'you're suspended and you have 30 days to appeal. For what? No reason."

On July 7, he informed JNS that his account and those of his staff had been reinstated. Again, he says, "no reason."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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A Chinese court on Monday handed down a four-year jail term to a citizen-journalist who reported from the central city of Wuhan at the peak of this year's coronavirus outbreak on the grounds of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," her lawyer said.

Zhang Zhan, 37, the first such person known to have been tried, was among a handful of people whose firsthand accounts from crowded hospitals and empty streets painted a more dire picture of the pandemic epicenter than the official narrative.

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"I don't understand. All she did was say a few true words, and for that she got four years," said Shao Wenxia, Zhang's mother, who attended the trial with her husband.

Zhang's lawyer Ren Quanniu told Reuters: "We will probably appeal."

The trial was held at a court in Pudong, a district of the business hub of Shanghai.

"Ms. Zhang believes she is being persecuted for exercising her freedom of speech," Ren had said before the trial.

Critics say that China deliberately arranged for Zhang's trial to take place during the Western holiday season to minimize Western attention and scrutiny. US President Donald Trump has regularly criticized Beijing for covering up the emergence of what he calls the "China virus."

The United Nations human rights office called in a tweet for Zhang's release.

"We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release," it said.

Criticism of China's early handling of the crisis has been censored, and whistle-blowers such as doctors warned. State media have credited the country's success in reining in the virus to the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

The virus has spread worldwide to infect more than 80 million people and kill more than 1.76 million, paralyzing air travel as nations threw up barriers that have disrupted industries and livelihoods.

In Shanghai, police enforced tight security outside the court where the trial opened seven months after Zhang's detention, although some supporters were undeterred.

A man in a wheelchair, who told Reuters he came from the central province of Henan to demonstrate support for Zhang as a fellow Christian, wrote her name on a poster before police escorted him away.

Foreign journalists were denied entry to the court "due to the epidemic," court security officials said.

A former lawyer, Zhang arrived in Wuhan on Feb. 1 from her home in Shanghai.

Her short video clips uploaded to YouTube consist of interviews with residents, commentary and footage of a crematorium, train stations, hospitals and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Detained in mid-May, she went on hunger strike in late June, court documents seen by Reuters say. Her lawyers told the court that police strapped her hands and force-fed her with a tube. By December, she was suffering headaches, giddiness, stomach ache, low blood pressure and a throat infection.

Requests to the court to release Zhang on bail before the trial and livestream the trial were ignored, her lawyer said.

Other citizen-journalists who have disappeared in China without explanation include Fang Bin, Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua.

While there has been no news of Fang, Li re-emerged in a YouTube video in April to say he was forcibly quarantined, while Chen, although released, is under surveillance and has not spoken publicly, a friend has said.

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Under the new law, social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have to ensure that they have local representatives in Turkey and that they comply with court orders regarding the removal of certain content, or face heavy fines.

Human Rights Watch expressed concern that the law would enable the government to get content removed at will and to arbitrarily target individual users.

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This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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It's a cat-and-mouse game that has become second nature in Iran, where the clerically-led government restricts access to popular social media sites and where US sanctions create other barriers.

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"Every day I struggle for 40 minutes just to get connected to uncensored internet," Akbari, a 30-year-old software developer, told The Associated Press. "Even after I do, the internet is so slow that I have difficulty even watching a short video."

Iranian authorities have sought to limit Western cultural influence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They began blocking popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube when activists used them to organize mass protests and document a crackdown after a disputed election in 2009.

That hasn't stopped Iranians from accessing such sites through virtual private networks, or VPNs, and other services. It also hasn't prevented a number of top Iranian officials from using the sites to broadcast the official line. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif frequently tweets in English, and accounts believed to be run by the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani regularly post on their behalf.

Khamenei himself has urged the nation's youth to "smartly use the cyberspace to slap the enemy in the mouth," and pro-government accounts have proliferated on Twitter and Instagram.

Rouhani, a relative moderate in Iran's clerical establishment, vowed to expand internet freedom when he was elected in 2013 but has failed to fully deliver on those promises, in part because the judiciary and security forces are dominated by hard-liners. In 2018, authorities blocked Telegram, an app that had been used by tens of millions of Iranians to send encrypted messages, after it was used to organize protests over economic hardships.

YouTube also remains largely off-limits, as it's hard to download and view videos while using the workarounds.

"YouTube is like an online university, but it's blocked," Akbari said.

Hard-liners fear that full access to the internet would allow Western countries to penetrate the Islamic Republic and foment unrest against the ruling clerics.

"Cyberspace is controlled by foreigners," said Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahhedi Kermani, a hard-line cleric who leads Friday prayers in Tehran. "They want to make the people pessimistic about the government."

Authorities have developed their own closed system, known as the "national information network," that blocks many foreign sites and slows access to others. Some refer to it as the "halal net," applying the term used for that which is permitted under Islam. Officials say it is designed to protect the country from cyberattacks and US sanctions. Iran is also developing its own services for messaging, online banking and entertainment, part of a larger push for self-sufficiency amid Western sanctions.

The government has taken steps to expand access and widen bandwidths, with Rouhani claiming earlier this month that all towns and 78% of villages have access to high-speed internet. But many Iranians say surfing the web remains a disappointing experience.

"The number of users has grown at a much faster rate than the speed of the country's internet," said Danial Behzadi, an information technology expert. "In general, the internet in Iran is relatively slow, expensive and has poor neutrality."

The sanctions have also created barriers, with the US government barring many tech firms from providing services in Iran. The Trump administration has ramped up sanctions, including on the country's vital oil industry, since withdrawing the US from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers last year.

Users trying to download apps frequently encounter messages saying such services are prohibited, and some American companies suspend accounts when they realize the users are in Iran.

The sanctions also restrict the ability of Iranians to shop online.

Iranians are unable to use major credit cards or online services like PayPal because the country is cut off from the international banking system. Amazon refuses to ship to Iran because of the sanctions. In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the online retail giant said it suspected Iranian embassies and diplomatic missions abroad had purchased more than $50,000 in goods, everything from books and apparel to toys and pet products.

Akbari recalls having to purchase a new keyboard for her laptop. When Amazon refused to send it to Iran, she asked a relative to buy one in Dubai.

"This is just an example," she said. "There are thousands of things you see on the internet you want to buy, but you can't."

Despite the limitations – or perhaps because of them – Iranians have become skilled at evading censors through proxy servers and VPNs.

Software developer Mehdi Beygi said he recently received an email from a popular coding platform saying that his account had been restricted because of US sanctions.

"It's normal," he said. "I'll bypass the ban, as always."

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Church leaders and conservative politicians set off a storm of indignation on social media this week when they demanded that a concert by Mashrou' Leila, scheduled to take place in the coastal city of Byblos on Aug. 9, be canceled, saying the group's songs are an insult to Christianity.

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The indie rock band, whose lead singer and song writer Hamed Sinno is openly gay, has been a champion of LGBTQ rights in the Arab world and regularly sings against controversial subjects such as sectarianism, corruption and other social problems.

The band has previously been banned from performing in Jordan and Egypt, but censorship demands threatening its concert in the more liberal Lebanon – where it has performed on numerous occasions – are new.

"After looking at the goals of Mashrou' Leila and the content of the songs it performs which infringe on religious and humanitarian values ... we call on authorities to suspend their performance on the land of holiness, civilization and history," a statement issued by the Christian Maronite Archdiocese of Byblos said.

On Facebook, a group calling itself the "Soldiers of God" started a campaign against the concert, posting warnings suggesting it would take to the streets to prevent the event from taking place. Others weighed in, starting a hashtag that called for stopping the performance.

Taken aback, the group hit back on Monday, saying it has been surprised by the "defamatory campaign."

"It's very sad that some of the lyrics from our songs have been cherry picked, taken out of context and twisted into a meaning very far from what the songs are actually about," a statement issued by the band said.

The rhetoric by religious and conservative figures spurred a response from activists, rights groups and outraged Lebanese, angry over what they see as their country's mounting suppression of freedom of expression.

"This is so ridiculous. The whole world seems to be regressing into illiberalism," wrote renowned Lebanese-American writer and novelist Rabih Alameddine, who performed with the band at The Met Breuer in New York earlier this month.

"Mashrou' Leila is one of the greatest things to happen to the Middle East."

The band, whose name translates as "Night Project," was founded 10 years ago by a group of architecture students at the American University of Beirut whose songs challenged stereotypes through their music and lyrics.

Riding on the wave Arab Spring uprisings that swept the Middle East, the band was embraced by Arab youth who see its music as part of a cultural and social revolution. The band members have gone on to gain worldwide acclaim, performing in front of sold-out crowds in the United States, Berlin, London and Paris.

Their August concert in Byblos would be their third show at the Mediterranean venue north of Beirut, the Lebanese capital. It was not clear what the organizers plan to do in the face of the controversy; they were not taking any calls on Wednesday.

Amnesty International issued a statement Tuesday calling on the Lebanese government to ensure the band is protected and the concert goes ahead.

"It is unconscionable that there continue to be such calls emanating from institutions that are meant to serve as role models to their constituencies, and can and should be upholding the right to freedom of expression," said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty's head of research for the Middle East.

It was not clear what specifically triggered the current outburst. Some critics cited a photo shared online by Sinno that depicts a painting of the Virgin Mary with her head replaced by the pop star Madonna.

The debate has been trending on Twitter for days.

In a country beset by political, economic and financial troubles, many lamented the focus on the arts and censorship.

"What's wrong? Why do you insist on taking us back to the middle ages? Is it not enough that we are collectively sliding backward without any breaks? Is it not enough the despair we live in, on all levels?" Joelle Boutros, an activist, posted on Facebook.

Columnist Diana Skaini, writing in the daily An-Nahar, said the debate goes beyond Mashrou' Leila, to the heart of Lebanon and its message as a country.

"Either we consecrate bans and populism and say goodbye to what remains of this moderate spot, or we confront this tyrannical wave that goes against our pluralistic and diverse country," she said.

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Last week, the lottery decided to stop funding the Docaviv prize following a month-long protest by bereaved families of victims of terrorism, who objected this year's prize being awarded to the film "Advocate," about attorney Lea Tsemel.

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Tsemel gained notoriety for her persistent defense of terrorists, including Abdel Aziz Salha, who took part in the 2000 lynching of two IDF reservists in Ramallah. Tsemel has also defended dozens of Hamas terrorists, as well as former Knesset minister Basel Ghattas, who was convicted of smuggling cell phones to jailed terrorists. Most recently, she represented the family of the terrorist who murdered and raped 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in February.

The prize carries a cash value of 70,000 shekels ($20,000) as well as a grant of 150,000 shekels ($42,000) to be used to promote the film as a candidate for an Academy Award.

The protest waged by families of victims of terrorism persuaded thousands of Israelis to cancel their subscription tickets, and the lottery issued a statement saying that not only would it no longer fund the award for Docaviv prize winners, it would also "examine the issue of the current award [for "Advocate"] with legal counsel."

Sunday's protest included some 100 people holding up placards urging Mifal HaPayis to reconsider its decision.

Across the street, family members of victims of terrorism and activists on their behalf, who got the lottery to cancel the award, staged a counterprotest.

Some artists in Israel are worried that the decision is part of trend toward an arts funding policy that is less concerned with freedom of speech than with nationalist rhetoric.

"Documentaries are about challenging the reality, and making society look at uncomfortable subjects through films," filmmaker Tomer Heyman told the Jerusalem Post last week.

"If they withdraw their support for this film, there is no limit and no end to what the government will try to do to Israeli art."

Rafael Balulu, a filmmaker who participated in the protest against the lottery's decision, told i24NEWS, that political controversy around documentary films in Israel was nothing new. Balulu cited the controversy stirred up by the 2002 film "Jenin, Jenin."

"We understand the pain of the families," he says, explaining that people from both sides of the street managed to find space for discussion during the demonstration. "It is painful for them to see a film portraying the defender of their family's killer."

However, Balulu insists that as a filmmaker, he has a "right to tell a story" if it doesn't incite to violence or hatred. And he calls Lea Tsemel a "good story," one that touches on the most vulnerable point for Israeli society.

"In Israel, documentary filmmakers are at the vanguard of political debate," Rafael says, insisting that freedom of speech and political debate should be strictly safeguarded.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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