Anti-Semitism, Activism, & Art: A Film Festival Turns 30

Arnold: 00:00:01

The St. Louis Jewish Film Festival celebrates 30 years and they have a powerhouse lineup, folks.

It will return to the new home at the B and B theaters in Crevecoe for two weeks of cinema excellence from March 30 through April 8. And we're going to talk to one of the directors of one of the films on St. Louis in tune. Welcome to St.

Louis in tune, and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders, and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston. Mark, this is going to be a great show today.

Mark: 00:00:49

I know it is. I'm looking forward to it.

Arnold: 00:00:51

They're all great, but this one is especially great because of the 30th anniversary of the Jewish Film Festival. We have a director of one of the films going to be talking to us today.

Mark: 00:01:00

That's big league.

Arnold: 00:01:01

It is big league. And before we begin our return to civility is if someone near you drops something, let them know or pick it up for them.

It could be something they really need or that's important to them. You also could save them the horrible panic that happens when you get home and can't find something.

Mark: 00:01:18

Oh, there's nothing worse. I thought I lost something the other day and started backtracking my steps.

Arnold: 00:01:24

I have to do that also.

Mark: 00:01:25

I even rented a truck from one of those home improvement centers, and I had them like, can I look through that truck?

Arnold: 00:01:33

Oh, wow.

Mark: 00:01:33

I went home and I found it. It was in one of my chairs that I saw.

Arnold: 00:01:37

At least you found it.

Mark: 00:01:38

I did, yes. Yeah, I did.

Arnold: 00:01:40

It's the ultimate shock is when you can't find your wallet or the car keys. Oh, that's. Oh, my gosh. Do I need to cancel all the credit cards?

Mark: 00:01:47

I leave my keys in the car more now because we've got that little push button thing.

Arnold: 00:01:51

Oh, you want to have it stolen then?

Mark: 00:01:53

Yeah, I guess that's what my wife Maria always says. What are crazy. I know.

Arnold: 00:02:00

Well, it's like you have to cancel that out because you can look him up on the Internet and find out.

Mark: 00:02:04

Where he lives with the keys in the little. Never mind. And. And then I. I know. I was like, push the button to turn it off and I'm out of there. Okay, Sorry.

Arnold: 00:02:14

Our guest in studio is John Wilson. He's the Festival Director for the 30th St. Louis Jewish Film Festival, and he is the director of cultural arts at the Jewish Community center of St.

Louis. He's also been a teaching artist and curriculum development teaching teacher at stages in St. Louis.

He also was a contract fight director and we talked with him about that when he was previously on. It's not like he contracts fights out there for MMA or anything like that. It's how he stages theater fights for productions.

And he also was the professor of theater and head of the School of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Central Missouri. John, welcome back to St. Louis in Tune.

John: 00:02:54

It is so good to be here. This is my favorite thing to do once a year, okay?

Arnold: 00:02:57

And Wendy Sachs, this is our word of the day. It's. You know what hyphenate means? You hyphenate a word. But hyphenate is a person who is active in more than one occupation or sphere.

She's a multi hyphenate. She's a storyteller.

nized by makers, was named in: 2017

How she really Does It. Secrets of a Successful Stay at Home Mom. An expert on career building, confidence work issues.

he gave her first TED talk in: 2017

I've got my first question beyond welcome to St. Louis in Tune. Wendy is how do you do it all? How do you do it, girl?

Mark: 00:04:06

She's a hyphenator.

Wendy: 00:04:08

You read me that bio and it sounds like I can't keep a job.

Arnold: 00:04:14

No, you've got so much time and you're so talented that you're able to move from one job to another like.

Wendy: 00:04:19

That, from one thing to the next. Just to clarify it, how he really does it. It's about stay at work mom. Not stay at home mom.

Arnold: 00:04:27

Stay at work mom. Yes, you're correct, mom.

Wendy: 00:04:30

That's right. Yeah. Work, life, balance. Hey guys, it's great to be with you. And listen, I've done a lot of things in my career.

I think I've had a pretty interesting career. I like to mix it up for sure.

But truly the most important project I've ever done and what I would call my life work is this film that is coming out and that's going to be at the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival, if you. We called October eight. It's actually. We have a new title from when it was first sent out to the film festivals.

It was originally called October 8th, the A being the number 8. And we've changed the title. We have distribution now. We're going to be in theaters across the country. We open on March 14th.

,: 2023

Arnold: 00:05:32

And I get that. And tell us a little bit of why you made the film and what can people expect who view the film.

Wendy: 00:05:39

, on: 2023

We were about to go to a pregame party and we saw the news of what was happening in Israel.

We saw the videos of Hamas terrorists kidnapping babies and children and grandparents and concert goers from the Nova Film Festival and dragging them into Gaza and literally murdering them and live streaming their horrific footage on. On people's Facebook pages and on telegrams and.

And then really the next day, on October 8, we saw new York Times Square, the celebration of Hamas being celebrated as freedom fighters rather than as terrorists. And then what was happening on university campuses, One thing after another. And I just thought that the world had lost its mind, that.

That there was no moral clarity anymore as to what was going on when babies are being kidnapped. And I started. I realized I needed to document this moment. And I got to work.

And the truth is that I've done these films before on my own, and they're a terrible business model to create a documentary film. I don't recommend it to anyone. It's blood, sweat and tears. It's really hard to pull off and to find distribution.

is film at the end of October: 2023

There's really the climate in Hollywood today toward anything about Israel or about anti Semitism or about the Jewish community has become really radioactive. People are very afraid of it and afraid of being canceled for Netflix and Amazon. Wherever I went, this is what I heard.

And so I thought, okay, I gotta do this.

And I got to work and I started everyone and reached out to the actress Deborah Messing, who was using her Instagram platform so unapologetically to speak out against the terrorism and who you were trying to remember the hostages. There was a lot of American hostages that were kidnapped. It was not just Israelis, it was people from around the world, but a lot of Americans.

And she was so fearless when so many other people in Hollywood were afraid to speak up. And I reached out to her and she became an executive producer on the film. She's also appears in the film.

We have comedian Michael Rapoport in the film and a whole list of very high profile people, including Sheryl Sandberg, Scott Galloway, members of Congress, and some really inspiring college students from, from universities across the country.

Arnold: 00:08:15

Now let me ask you this. Why do you think that is with Hollywood? Why do you think that is with Amazon and all these other online streaming places?

Would not even want to touch what you wanted to do.

Wendy: 00:08:28

I think that there is the other side that is, that has been supporting Hamas. To be honest with you, this is not just supporting campus activism or campus process.

What we were seeing on college campuses are not like Vietnam War era protests. They are well funded. There is Hamas in America that has been feeding this messaging for decades on college campuses and playing fields.

When we saw the encampments at schools, at universities last spring, they all had the same tents, right? This is all really orchestrated.

And I think that other side is so loud and so noisy and disruptive and so threatening that streamers in the entertainment industry and Hollywood, they're just afraid. They're afraid of the noise on the other side. They're afraid.

And quietly they would say, hey, we really love your film and we really respect what you're doing. This is very important work, but no one's going to buy it. We're not going to make money off of it.

And we're afraid about frankly just being canceled out there as a fear of cancel culture.

Mark: 00:09:30

Is it Hamas or is it the Palestinians?

Wendy: 00:09:34

Not the Palestinians. Yeah, it is that. And to clarify, it is Iran, it is Russia, it is China. They are the proxy for what we're seeing.

And the, the Muslim Brotherhood is financing the sjp, which is Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on American college campuses. So sjp, which should be getting to in the film, is not just a student group.

The way there's Students for Climate Change or Student for Reproductive Freedom or any of the other sort of Social justice causes out there. SJP is a manifestation of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a terrorist organization.

And in the film, we show the connectivity, we show the funding, we show we.

in the Marriott hotel room in: 1993

But what we're seeing on college campuses and what a lot of people don't realize is that these students who might think they're on the right side of the issue, who might think that they are standing up to repression and to racism or whatever they might be seeing out there, but in fact they're being there, there's propaganda and they're being controlled by, by terrorists. When it starts with Iran and their proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas and it, and it funneled down.

Arnold: 00:11:21

You answered one of my questions about the coordinated effort and who's funding this and who's organizing this.

Were you surprised at how fast these campus sit ins and all of this unrest occurred and how fast it grew, or was it almost seems that people were waiting for the moment or knew about the moment was going to take place and, and then they were ready to go with the signs. They were ready. Some of them were homemade signs, some of them were pre done signs. It seems they were professionally done signs and things like that.

Were you surprised?

Wendy: 00:11:51

I was surprised in the moment and then I started doing the research and what we reveal in the film is there was a toolkit that was pushed out onto college campuses and these sjp, these students were justice from Palestine chapters across the country. On October 8, there was messaging, there was a Google document with the imagery, with the messages and then everything blew up.

So they were ready to go again. This goes back to this is sophisticated, this is coordinated, and they've been playing the long game.

And so I think what happened is a lot of people in the Jewish community for sure woke up on, on October 8th. My tagline as the beginning of this, of this project was October 7th, Hamas attacked Israel. On October 8th, American Jews woke up.

But it wasn't just the Jewish community, it's Americans in general who are seeing, wait, what is going on here? When you see Houthi flags Next to gay pride flags on Columbia University's college campus. None of it makes sense. None of this makes sense.

So these alliances that we've seen are bizarre and the, the response is shocking. But at the same time, when you start to unravel it and unpack it, you understand that this was not organic, that this was.

This is a long time in the making.

Arnold: 00:13:11

This is Arnold Strick with Mark Langston of St. Louis in Tune. We're talking to Wendy Sack, she's director of the film October 8th.

And you can go to october8film.com that film is going to be shown at the St. Louis Jewish Film Festival. And also with us is John Wilson, festival director.

John, how does this film work into the all of the films that are going to be shown? Talk a little bit about those other films and is there a theme here?

John: 00:13:37

So we've got 13 films that we're showing and we try and divide the festival up thematically. Like we've got an April Fool's comedy double feature. So it's just nothing but comedy on that day. And the film, Wendy's film, is on April 6th.

And this is our October 7th retrospective. So at 3pm we have a documentary, it's actually an episode from a docu series out of Israel called Fighters.

And this is about the IDF soldiers who went into Gaza after October 7th. And we're getting to see what they had to face through their body cam. We get to see that footage.

Most of the soldiers that we follow are injured, some pretty drastically. But it's a very heartwarming film because it's about how their families and their friends rallied around them.

How many of them still want to serve and go back when they're healthy.

And then when our committee saw October 8th, we knew that had to be part of our October 7th retrospective and it had to be the feature film in the evening.

It is an absolute takedown of progressive left policies that have been propagandistic, manipulative and have been influencing our teenagers and young adults for decades. And Wendy did just the most phenomenal job in the storytelling of it. She lays it out and makes it clear.

And for me personally, this was a wake up call. It was a wake up call for all of our Jewish community in St. Louis.

And it was a wake up call for all of the non Jewish people that will come to the festival. And we just, we're putting this in the grand screen. That's the 195 seat theater at BNB and we think it's gonna sell out. We think it's gonna do great.

We're so excited to have Wendy come and talk to us about the film. I think there's gonna be a ton of conversations to come from this. So that day is very important.

And we've got another couple days where we focus on movies that take place in Israel. We've got, you know, like we always do, we have a couple of Holocaust theme films and things like that.

So this is my third festival, but it's only the second festival that I've curated, so I only have last year to compare it to, but sounds ridiculous to say out of the two festivals that I've curated, this is the best one. But seriously, every single film in this year's festival is worth seeing. It's going to be outstanding.

We've got this opening day triple header where we're featuring this film that was actually made in St. Louis at Epstein Hebrew Academy.

High schoolers interviewing Holocaust survivors and just like learning that story and understanding why it is so important to keep that story alive. And we've got the creator of that project, Names Not Numbers is a national project. And so we've got Tova Fish Rosenberg coming in.

We've got the director of the film, Michael Pirro coming in. We've got Michael Berenbaum, who's this like world renowned Holocaust museum curator and author and professor. He's coming in.

We've got kids from Epstein and the principal from Epstein. And so we're have this huge talk back after that film. And then we're going to end with Sir Anthony Hopkins in One Life at 7pm that night.

And so it's just every day has something for everyone.

And I think every day we are achieving our objective with the film festival, which is to get people to feel like they're a part of a community, get them connected to one another, increase their sense of empathy as they learn about the human condition and watching all of these wonderful stories. And there's a. There's a loneliness epidemic in this country.

And getting out to festivals and getting out to these communal events is one way to really improve people's mental health and their emotional health and just make them feel like they're part of something important.

Arnold: 00:17:40

Absolutely. I want to encourage folks, you don't have to be Jewish to come to this film festival. You just have to have an inquisitive, curious mind.

You may not even like films, but these are films. Having seen part of Wendy's film, the. These are films you need to see because they're informative in what's going on in Our culture today.

So it's at the BnB theaters in Cree Core. There's an all access pass that's available until March 9th. You can get individual tickets, they're $15.

But you go to STL jewishfilmfestival.org STL jewishfilmfestival dot org and if you want.

Mark: 00:18:16

To, you have to RSVP, I think, for each film that you want to see too.

Arnold: 00:18:21

Is that correct?

John: 00:18:21

Well, then you buy the all festival pass.

Mark: 00:18:23

I see.

John: 00:18:24

You need to RSVP for those films because we want to make sure that we're accounting for every single person that's a passholder, that we have seats saved for those that are coming to those specific films. Because like a film theater, it's limited capacity.

Arnold: 00:18:40

Right, right.

John: 00:18:40

And the passes are selling fast. As of this recording, we're reaching half capacity already. And so this is the time, right, to get in there, right? Yeah.

Mark: 00:18:51

So by before midnight tonight.

Arnold: 00:18:53

Yeah, exactly. Wendy, how did you pick the individuals that you had in the documentary who told their story?

Wendy: 00:19:03

That's a great question. I went to just people who I thought of who were experts in their field and who a politically diverse group of people. I.

It was intentional that I also found non Jews, non Jewish experts to be talking to. I didn't want this blowhard to go off the handle and start spouting their sort of ideology.

But instead I wanted people who are really truly experts, from the Treasury Department, from Jonathan Schanzer to Lorenzo Vidino, the head of extremism at George Washington University. Not Joaquin, Italian Catholic.

And then I was really looking for great stories, is that it's a character driven film, that it's not just a bunch of wonky Coles out there, an academic who are just spouting fact. Because that would be a very boring documentary. I was looking for student stories where there was a real sort of story arc and strong characters.

So I interviewed more than a dozen college students and ultimately I think four or five made it into the film. And these students are just exceptional. They're inspiring. They pop on camera, they just have these incredible stories. So it was a real mixture.

I was looking for some star power. I was looking for some high profile people to raise the profile of the film and to elevate it.

But at the end of the day, I'm a journalist and I wanted to make sure that whoever I put out there, we were triple check checking all the facts and that everything really stood up. Really one of the big themes of this film is extremism, Islamic jihadism, birth Democracy.

And I wanted voices who could really unpack what's going on and what's at stake. And so Congressman Ricky Torres is one of the characters in the film. He's, he's incredible. So is Musab Yousef.

He's a son of the co founder of Hamas who really understands what Hamas is like as he grew up with it and then became an informant for the, for the IDF or the Israel Defense Forces or for the government, I guess, or the Mossad. But he's an incredible voice in the film also.

So it was a real mixture of finding the most incredible student voices out there who have real mixed with a diverse group of expert voices.

Arnold: 00:21:19

Yeah, he's done some things with Barry Weiss on the Free Press that I've seen and very powerful that. And Barry was very powerful. Barry was in the film documentary, wasn't she? Barry Weiss.

Wendy: 00:21:32

Barry Weiss is in. Barry Weiss is in the film. Scott Galloway just it's an incredible list of names.

They're really who can speak from, from politics to social media to really what's unpacking what antisemitism is today. Another theme of this film is that anti Zionism is the modern form of anti Semitism.

Arnold: 00:21:55

Yep.

Wendy: 00:21:56

There used to be some gray in there and that's just no longer the case. What I want people to do is I didn't want to be preachy. I didn't want this to be again too like an academic film.

I wanted to lift the hood up and unpack for everyone what's happening out there. Like how did we get to this moment where Hamas is being celebrated as freedom fighters rather than a terrorist?

And that is really one of the themes of the film and I think a big takeaway.

Arnold: 00:22:24

We're going to take a brief break and folks, if you missed part of this, you can catch this show and other shows@stlntune.com and please leave a review if if you like what you hear. But we're going to come back for the next segment. You're listening to St.

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-: 9090

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In: 1857

,: 1868

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On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this is been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in Tune. Welcome back to St. Louis in Tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston.

We have John Wilson, festival Director of the 30th Annual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival. And on the line, Wendy Sachs, who's director of the film October 8th.

And this is going to be part of the Jewish Film festival, which is the 30th. And John, you've got the kind of the directory of the films in front of you, as I do. And Mark does also.

We've talked a little bit about some of these films, but they're all big hits. They're all big hitters. There's not a dud in the group.

John: 00:25:40

No, there. There really isn't. We have you watched over 70 films?

Arnold: 00:25:45

Oh, my God.

John: 00:25:45

And we narrowed it down to like 30, 35 that we shared with our selection committee and then we got these 13. So, like, the cream really does rise to the top. And.

And these are major distributors from across the entire globe pushing A plus content for festivals. A lot of them have appeared in movie theaters as well or on major streaming platforms. And we have some gems that most people would not see.

But, but a lot of these are like, these are the kind of mainstream movies that you go to the movies for.

Arnold: 00:26:21

And the Purpose of the festival is.

John: 00:26:23

We want to be able to have a place where the community can come and they can watch cinema. We think cinema is one of the most powerful ways to engage with storytelling.

We feel like the ideas about the human condition, whether you're learning that from a documentary or you're learning it from a drama or a comedy, it really awakens that sense of empathy in all of us and allows us to have a common shared experience. And then we get these great talkbacks that happen after the films as well. So we get to dive deeper in, into those films with our guests.

And we are trying to cure a place of excellence in cinema, but then also community engagement.

Arnold: 00:27:07

And we've talked about some serious films about what happened in October and also the Holocaust. But you also have some comedy films that really. There's also one about Brian Epstein, the manager of the Beatles.

John: 00:27:21

And yeah, Midas man is a musical drama about his discovery of the Beatles. And the. The four actors that, that play the Beatles, they're amazing. How they look like those like the members of the Beatles when they were younger.

It's amazing how they found these guys and they must have. The character studies of these kids must have gone through is amazing. They do a phenomenal job.

And it's a really cool story seeing how that group got discovered and came together actually in playing on that same day. We call it our true stories day on Monday, April 7th. We also have at 7 o'clock a film called Avenue of the Giants.

I don't know if you would ever say this phrase, a feel good Holocaust movie, but you can say it about Avenue of the Giants and it's because it's a true story about Herbert Heller who. He escaped the concentration camps as like a 10 year old and he kept this secret even from his own family for 60 years.

Arnold: 00:28:26

Oh my gosh.

John: 00:28:27

He never told a soul.

And then he meets this young girl named Abby and she's going through a really like tough crisis time in her life and she's opening up to him and he feels like the only way he can really connect with her is to start to tell her his story.

Arnold: 00:28:45

Wow.

John: 00:28:45

And so these two start sharing their stories of pain and suffering.

But ultimately it becomes so redemptive because they both end up pursuing healing and wholeness through just finally being able to share what they're going through.

Arnold: 00:29:02

Wow.

John: 00:29:02

And it's just, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful film. You mentioned the comedies. So last year, one of the most popular films we had was a film called Matchmaking.

And this was out of Israel. It's just, it was such a lovely film. Young romance. You've got two different sects from the Orthodox community, Romeo and Juliet.

This year we're showing Matchmaking two. And you don't have to have seen Matchmaking one to appreciate Matchmaking two.

If you did see Matchmaking one, you absolutely don't want to miss this film because all the same characters come back and it's just as good. Like sometimes sequels are a little bit of a risk. And this is just as well written, just as well directed and acted.

It just picks up where the last film left off and you just fall more and more in love with these characters. And it's just delightful. It is so fun.

Arnold: 00:29:53

Wow.

John: 00:29:53

It's great. And following that in the, in the evening is a film called Bad Shabbos. And it's just basically about a.

A Friday night Shabbat dinner that could not go more wrong. And it gets to the point where it's almost farcical. It's just so bad. It is so bad. But just great stars in that one and extremely well done.

That one's been taking a lot of awards at the film festival circuit this year. So it's a top comedy.

Arnold: 00:30:26

These are some top films, folks. And for more information, go to jccstl.com jccstl.com the festival is March 30, April 1 and 3rd, and then April 6, 7th and 8.

Wendy, I want to turn to you for a. For a minute here.

You've done a gazillion things in your career and I know you were saying that maybe that doesn't speak highly of you because you jumped jobs. And to me it speaks that you were continuing to grow. And my question is, what drives you? What drives you, girl?

Wendy: 00:31:02

You know what I think? This passion and a mission to change the world, I know, as cheesy as that is, but everything that I do, there's some sort of purpose behind it.

I think I'm a very purpose driven person and that's keeping me going. I like to mix things up. I like to challenge myself and I like to tell important stories. Again, I think this project right now, it's.

Nothing has felt more purposeful. It feels existential and truly personal.

Arnold: 00:31:31

Explain that. How is that, how has that impacted you personally? Because I had a question about that. What, what has this film done to you?

Wendy: 00:31:41

It's been transformative. You know, it's. The film is not about October 7th as much as it is about October 8th and afterward. But at the same time, I filmed in Israel.

I spent two weeks filming in Israel in January, right after October 7th. A few months afterwards I went to the kibbutzim, I went to the Nova site and I then traveled back again in June. And you can't unsee those images.

They're horrific. And it felt as a Jewish American, someone living in the diaspora, I know that I have the privilege of being an American.

And at the same time, it felt like October 7th for me and I think for many in the Jewish community have been speaking for diaspora Jewry. We felt that it was a generational trauma unleashed.

I'm of a certain age where I've grown up in the again privileged in America and have not really felt anti Semitism in a way that we're feeling today. I started feeling it a few years ago and where someone actually, I don't think I can curse on your air, so I.

I won't drop the F bomb, but someone used that expletive and put the word do next to it and hung up on me, a woman. And I couldn't believe it. And it was just as that. Something has really shifted in our culture in the past few years.

And while I think that a lot of antisemitism was simmering underground like an iceberg, you see part of the. Most of the density of the iceberg is underneath the ice. And then it all popped up, it all exploded after October 7th.

And that's been shocking and that's been personal and that's driven a lot of this project of getting people to understand what's going on and to see. Think in our culture. We've seen Jews are really the minority of the minority as far as sheer numbers, but we're not treated as such.

There's this belief that Jews are white and wealthy and all privileged here in America. And that's driven a lot of what we've seen with DEI on college campuses and in. In corporations.

And things really need to change and we need to start really paying attention to the hate. The hate that the Jewish community faces is. Is much greater than any other religious population out there. And the data all speaks to it.

The hate that we're seeing online is real. It's scary. And what we see online has real world ramifications. We thought of the tree of Life and Pittsburgh was going to time after time.

And I think that is really been part of the inspiration behind the film and behind educating people. There's a long tail to this project. It's not just about the film festivals and it's not just about.

It's Going to be in movie theaters, which it will be in AMC and reboot theaters and other theaters across the country starting on March 14th. But it's about getting this into schools.

And so we're working on creating a curriculum to bring the film into schools, into public schools across the country because it's really needed.

Arnold: 00:34:38

We need to educate and that's the vantage point, educating the public. Which is one reason I'm glad that you and John are on the show. That's one of the purposes of the show is to help educate the populace.

We had Benjamin Ginsburg on during the New Jewish Book Festival and he was talking about his book, the New American, the Left, the Right and the Jews and educating the public. It's tough because people are watching their own media venues. People who watch Fox don't watch cnn. People who watch CNN don't watch Fox.

They don't get a balanced kind of stream. They try to get most of their news from either Twitter X or Instagram or wherever they're getting it from Blue sky or however it is.

They're not using the God given intelligence that they've been given to balance facts and look at what is true, what is not true and to investigate to the point where to find out what the truth really is. Because it gets back to that film. You can't handle the truth.

Wendy: 00:35:38

Right.

Arnold: 00:35:38

And that's where people need to go. And I get it's more of a statement from my end to you, but my question relates to what needs to happen now.

If somebody goes to the film, what do you want them to come out of the film and do A couple of things.

Wendy: 00:35:54

I want them to push back on the hate when they see that anti Zionism or Zionist not allowed that. That'd be a message that comes up in the film.

There was a sign that was posted at the University of California, Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara, targeting the president of the student body government, Tessa Wechler. And as soon as I saw that sign, when I saw no Zionists allowed at the, at the multicultural center at UC Santa Barbara, I couldn't believe it.

To me, when you see no Zionist, you mean no Jew. And I want people to understand what that is. So when they're seeing this Zionism, Zionist, Zionists are racist. Zionists are genocidal. That means Jew.

And that needs to be a takeaway from this film.

And what I do want people to do is also realize when they're, what they're watching on social media, what they're getting online, the news that they're being that's being delivered to them and these like little nuggets that are just like clickbait. I want young people to start thinking more critically about what they're viewing and really question the story. Where is it coming from?

When they see people protesting on campus with Hamas paraphernalia and upside down red triangles, which, by the way, is Hamas iconography that's been hijacked and been taken to American college campuses, they need to understand that's terrorism, that's a threat to democracy, that it's not just about the Jews in Israel. It's much bigger. This is about the west, it's about democracy, it's about our freedom. There are big issues at stake.

And so it's much bigger than just the Jewish community. It's much bigger than a growing wave of antisemitism. It's about them, too.

Arnold: 00:37:33

John, I want to ask as well, said Wendy.

I want to ask, when people walk out of the festival, I know you talked about the goal of the festival, what do you want them to be able to do when they're walking out of those doors of the festival cinema?

John: 00:37:46

I think after every single one of these films, there's going to be an opportunity to have conversations that our audience would not engage in otherwise.

So whether that is with the family member that came with came with them or the friend that came with them, or even if they just came to the festival films by themselves, the knowledge and what they got from that, they take back into their home or into their community.

And it's going to promote a number of conversations and it's going to talk about, you know, we need to take a deeper look at our marriage or we need to take a deeper look at, you know, infusing our relationship with more romance, or we need to take a look at what happened on October 7th and reorient our worldview to match the truth of what that situation was. They're going to learn history and that's going to help them think differently, not only about that history, but about the present as well.

And I want everyone to walk out either having learned or felt something in a really dramatic way and then be able to share that with one another. And hopefully they walk out with a smile on their face. Some films are going to walk out.

Wendy: 00:38:55

Very somber Q and A, but I will take a Q and A.

John: 00:38:57

They are going to end up having conversations that that just drive their relationships even further.

Arnold: 00:39:06

Wendy, I want to thank you for taking time to talk with us about the film October 8th. And folks, you can go to october8film.com October 8th film.com to check more about that. And if you want to go to the Jewish film.

I shouldn't say if you want to go, you need to go to the Jewish Film Festival. JCCSTL.com JCCSTL.com will give you more information on that. Wendy, I want to give you an open invitation.

You're welcome to come back at any time that you want to talk about whatever you want. And Mark wants to say something.

John: 00:39:34

I wanted to thank you so much.

Wendy: 00:39:36

I appreciate it. You gave me so much time. This has been such a great interview. So thank you both.

Mark: 00:39:40

I want to make sure we have the website right because it's spelled H8. The number 8.

Arnold: 00:39:45

No, it's a new website now.

Mark: 00:39:46

Okay.

Wendy: 00:39:47

New, new website. We revised the name when we got distribution. They wanted to appeal to a larger audience.

Arnold: 00:39:52

Okay.

Wendy: 00:39:52

And so instead of the hate and it's a little confusing with the A as the number eight, we are now October 8th. Film dot com. Yeah, the number eight. The number eight. October. The number eight. Film dot com.

Arnold: 00:40:06

Thank you for clarifying that.

Mark: 00:40:07

Just wanted to make sure.

Arnold: 00:40:08

Yeah, okay, great, Wendy, thank you very much.

Mark: 00:40:11

And can I say good luck on. Was it March 14? Did you say they're going to start putting them in theaters?

Arnold: 00:40:16

In theaters, yeah.

Mark: 00:40:16

That is fantastic. Congratulations on that. That is really great to get it out to you.

John: 00:40:22

Thank you so much to the general public.

Wendy: 00:40:24

And I'm excited to come to St. Louis.

John: 00:40:26

Yes.

Wendy: 00:40:26

Right before my birthday.

John: 00:40:28

We're looking forward to having you, Wendy.

Mark: 00:40:29

We'll have to have a birth cake fan. Little hats. Can we do little hats? Noise makers. Okay.

Arnold: 00:40:36

Well, John and Wendy, thanks very much, folks. That's all for this hour. They thank you for listening.

We're going to post all of this information on the podcast page so when you listen, you don't have to write it down quickly. You can just go to the website stluntune.com and click on that website and that will come. Those will come right up for you.

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Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy and let your light shine for St. Louis. Listen, tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.