[Please note: This review contains spoilers for the film “Holding Liat.”]
“Here’s to the world’s worst dancer,” Liat Beinin Atzili declares, standing next to the coffin of her husband, Aviv Atzili, as she takes the hands of her children and invites those around her to dance to Aviv’s favorite song.[1] Everyone attempts to take her in their arms, telling her, “She’s something else,” as she dances into and out of their embrace, the dance never leaving her body. Aviv’s mother takes Liat in her arms, weeping, and says “I’m sorry I can’t bring myself to dance with you.” Liat pauses, and softens into her embrace.
This is “Holding Liat.”
What is “Holding Liat?”
“Holding Liat” is a film that can be described in a myriad of ways.
First and foremost, it is an observational documentary, as described by filmmaker Brandon Kramer, following the divergent ways three generations of an Israeli-American extended family cope with fear, trauma and grief in the wake of Oct. 7 and the kidnapping of their own.
Yet it is also a film about how three generations of an Israeli-American extended family, through the lens of Oct. 7, relate to the State of Israel, its current government, and the state’s present and past policies.
Yet it is also a film about how these divergent political views shape their relationships with one another.
Yet it is also a view into how one Israeli woman, held hostage by Hamas for 54 days, coped with and made meaning of her experience.
Yet it is also a film that provides us with an inside view (unlike any I have seen before) into the political and media strategy used by the Israeli government following Oct. 7 to garner American political and communal support for their campaign in Gaza.
Yet it is also a film about the tension between the Israel of the past and the Israel of the present — the dream of Israel versus its contemporary manifestation . A film that questions whether the dream was ever actually true.
And it does all of this with no agenda but to observe. As filmmaker Brandon Kramer said, “It’s not a film trying to do everything.” And yet, without trying, it does a lot.
The Characters
Viewers might find it hard to believe that this film was documentary and not fictionalized, as the characters represent such a broad spectrum of Israeli political opinion at this time, rendering the film a complex view into the present Israeli psyche.
We have the patriarch of the family, who came to Israel in the 1970s with dreams of Socialist revolution and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, who has grown disillusioned with the trajectory Israel has taken, and, as he begins to scratch the surface, questions whether the dream was ever true to begin with.
We have his daughter, who doesn’t know why her father must make the kidnapping of her sister political (into a commentary on the Netanyahu government, on the historic and ongoing Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians, etc.), though she herself intentionally left Israel years ago for the United States. Who can’t help but desire vengeance against her sister’s kidnappers. Who just wants to see her sister home.
And we have his grandson, still so young, who singlehandedly prevented militants from entering his room on Oct. 7 by holding his bedroom door shut. Who does his best to be what all the political strategists want him to be — for he would do anything to save his mother — yet without ever having the opportunity to work through, for himself, the trauma of that day.
And we have Liat herself, a character who remains only an idea until her return from captivity in the film’s third act, yet immediately becomes the film’s protagonist, with a depth of understanding and compassion for her captors that is utterly unfathomable. Who closes the film as the ultimate voice for peace and mutual understanding.
Not to mention the rotating cast of minor characters including U.S. President Joe Biden, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a filmmaker who, himself, is a part of the family — a fact not obvious upon viewing, and yet illuminating of the level of access, intimacy and choices we see throughout the film.
Liat explains to all those around her the ways in which her time in captivity allowed for her to better understand the plight of her captors and for them to better understand hers.
The Acts
The film’s first act follows the family as they begin to piece together the story of what happened to Liat and Aviv on Oct. 7, 2023, and follow divergent paths about how to cope. Yehuda (Liat’s father), Tal (Liat’s sister) and Netta (Liat’s youngest son) join a delegation to Washington, D.C., where they meet with members of Congress and speak to audiences of Jews while Liat’s mother, Chaya, remains home to await the return of her daughter. In this act, we see how Yehuda’s interpretation of events and the strategy that he believes should be pursued for the return of his daughter — one that asks people to place Oct. 7 in political context and requires the removal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — bumps up against the messaging that the political strategists want the hostage families to follow: to focus on the personal and avoid all semblance of the political.
One of the most powerful scenes in this act follows a speech given by Yehuda in the halls of Congress, in which his messaging clearly goes against his instruction. Following his speech, he is approached by Palestinian advocate Ahmed Mansour. “Salaam Aleykum,” you hear Ahmed say a few times from off-camera before he comes into the shot. Ahmed shares with Yehuda that his delegation is there to call upon Congress for a ceasefire. Yehuda takes the hand of Ahmed, pulls him in close, so as to whisper in his ear.
“We have a lot more in common than you might assume,” Yehuda says. The two engage in a hushed yet intense conversation in a physically intimate yet tense embrace, at the end of which, one must ask themselves, Do they have a lot more in common than we might assume?
The film’s second act follows the family after they return to Israel, as the first temporary ceasefire is called and a hostage exchange becomes possible. They fight, with all means at their disposal, to have Liat be one of those returned during this temporary ceasefire. During this act, we get glimpses into the conversations between the family and their Israeli Defense Forces’ liaison, and the utter agony of sitting, and waiting, and not knowing. This act ends with learning that Liat will return in the last exchange, in part due to the intervention of Biden.
In the film’s final act, Liat returns and reunites with her family; however, it is only hours before they receive the news that her husband, Aviv, will not be returning alive.
In this act, we follow Liat. Her resilience. The ways in which she refuses to play the part of the grieving widow. Her rejection of calls to avenge the death of her husband. Her path, instead, to mutual understanding, in which she explains to all those around her how her time in captivity allowed for her to better understand the plight of her captors, and for them to better understand hers. How she calls many of her family members —who are not as easily forgiving as her — into compassion for the other.
Perhaps, Liat says, the only way forward is for her fellow Israelis to really grapple with what life is like on the other side of the fence.
Making Meaning
As Kramer explained at the talkback after the July 22 screening of the film at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the filmmaking team was clear that, upon learning of Liat’s imminent return, the film would need to end with whatever meaning Liat made of her experience.
And the meaning she made was profound.
The film ends with Liat, a passionate teacher, back at teaching (which, as we learned from Kramer, was what she most wanted upon her return.) In the penultimate scene, she is leading a group of Israeli high-schoolers through an exhibit at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. She explains to them how, during the Holocaust, horrendous things were being done to Jews on the other side of some wall as their neighbors chose to look away.
We then follow her outside, where she sits upon Jerusalem stone, and begins to tell us — the viewers — a story.
One day, in the before-times, she was just having a crappy day and asked for Aviv’s support. He turned to her and said, “You think your life is bad? Just think of the lives of those on the other side of the fence!”
In the moment, she was frustrated with him, she tells us. What kind of response was that?
And yet, she now returns to his words. Perhaps —she says — the only way forward for her fellow Israelis is to grapple with what life is like on the other side of the fence. Maybe then, and only then, will they find peace.
“Holding Liat” was the winner of the “Berlinale Documentary Award” and the “Ecumenical Jury Forum Award” at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival, and “Best International Film” at the 2025 DocAviv Film Festival. It was nominated for the “Golden Firebird Award” at the 2025 Hong Kong International Film Festival.
[1] All descriptions of what happens in the film are from memory and may not be entirely accurate.
