How do you tell someone a story that they don’t want to hear?
This is the puzzle that six-time Emmy-winning filmmaker Haley Geffen grappled with in creating the documentary Safe Room, which follows Dr. Gedalya Fendel in the chaos of southern Israel on October 7, 2023 as he takes in several families from besieged Gaza border communities, providing refuge for them in his own home and family.
The haphazard collection of people all somehow emerge from their safe room and the battlefield that day while Hamas terrorists still rampage nearby. Shellshocked grandparents. A couple about to have their first baby even as the house around them is in flames. And two children – whose parents were murdered and their sister kidnapped.
For the average disconnected viewer who may be swept up in today’s cultural moment, who has preconceived views on Israel and turns a blind eye to antisemitism, who wants nothing to do with any of it, such a heavy story must be told carefully.
“It has to come without the politics and religion that allow them to dismiss it at first glance. Without the superfluous footage that lets it seem like a video game. It must be balanced,” Geffen said. “It must be just a story about people.”
The film does not unfold chronologically. In a break with pure documentary form, it is more rounded, with the stories interwoven, like a tapestry. She worked with both Jewish and non-Jewish editors to ensure that the storytelling was disciplined, that every bit of footage was necessary.
And of course, some things don’t even need to be stated. “The way we are as a people, how we help each other… It’s a very biblical story, just baked into us. Bringing people into your home, taking care of them, washing the blood off their face. Giving them food and comfort.”
On October 7, Geffen was in California where she lives. She remembers struggling to absorb the news and footage, trying to explain what happened to her children. Her daughter asked plainly, “Is there going to be another Holocaust?” Two weeks later, she had already experienced an antisemitic incident at her public school.
Since Geffen previously spent formative time in Israel, she always felt a deep, Zionistic connection to it. Around six months after that day, she flew over to learn more for herself and bear witness in the aftermath.
By chance, Dr. Fendel was the person giving her group a tour of the south. As the account of his own experiences from the day emerged, Geffen could see he was still processing it all, unaware of the gravity of what he had done by bringing random people in and tying their lives together through such a brutal time. She understood it was actually a much bigger story – and she eventually got everyone’s blessing to tell it.
The film has elements that in less focused hands might take up space in a more obvious way, with some narration by Israel Ziv, former head of the Israel Defense Force’s Operations Directorate, and Avi Issacharoff, one of the creators of the television series Fauda. And yet with Geffen, the story remains solidly about the people in it that you otherwise would have never heard about.
“I went in thinking it was going to be about hope. But through filming, it really turned out to be a story about how on that day they all became a family.”
Perhaps it is natural that the human element of what happened resonates most profoundly with Geffen. Inevitably, it may recall an experience of her own that she has almost never spoken of. In 2010 at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland, an armed gunman took several people hostage and Geffen along with many others spent hours barricaded inside a room on the next floor, locked in the uncertainty.
Geffen is careful to emphasize that Safe Room is in no way about her. But the film demonstrates a profound, insightful draw to the psychological elements of that day. How people confront the very real possibility of death. The perception versus the reality that each person experiences in an individual way.
Given Geffen’s previous comedic work, this hard film may seem like a detour. But it is precisely because of her comedy background that she understands how small human moments create that essential relationship for the viewer. When someone in the documentary makes a self-deprecating observation or throws up their hands and laughs in a wry way, “people in the audience can breathe a sigh of relief. It gives them permission to connect.”
And this human element is what gives Safe Room the ability to speak to all audiences – both those who are invested and those who are not. Unlike jarring footage, unlike any loud dogma – it is this quiet story that has the potential to speak to the people who don’t want to hear it, but must.
On Monday August 17 at 12:15, The National Library of Israel will hold a screening of Safe Room. It will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Haley Geffen, along with Dr. Gedalya Fendel, Merav Fendel, and Tamar Schlesinger, some of the film’s central figures. The conversation will be held in English. To purchase tickets, click here.
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The National Library of Israel is grateful to Bat Shlomo Vineyards for their sponsorship of the Docutext festival, and to Rosalie and Richard Alter for their partnership in memory of their dear friend, Stuart Schoffman.
