Filmed mere months after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, Screams Before Silence is an emotionally confronting exploration into the sadistic sexual violence perpetrated against hundreds of Israeli women as told through powerful testimony and engaging documentary filmmaking.

“The body of the woman symbolises the body of a whole nation”. This statement from Screams Before Silence is as haunting as it is profound, and speaks to the mindset of the deranged Islamic terrorist group Hamas who on October 7, 2023, used rape as resistance during their systematic massacre of 1,200 women, men, and children.

No doubt their motive was to humiliate and degrade the women of their bitter enemy, and the ways which these butchers enact on their hate-filled savagery would be too extreme for a torture porn movie.

What Hamas didn’t count on was the survivors of October 7 to defy the evil inflicted upon them and speak out against the sexual violence and murder on that dark day. Eyewitnesses, first responders, and survivors feature in Screams Before Silence to once more say “never again”, and the trauma from what was the deadliest attack on the Jews since the Holocaust still lingers like a dark fog.

A moment in which Michal Ohana – a survivor of the Nova Festival attack – tearfully crumbles into the arms of director Anat Stalinsky after a loud bang startles her into sobbing distress, exemplifies how the impact of that day will never leave her. The testimony of Eran Masas – a veteran who travelled two hours armed and ready to combat the Hamas monsters –describes the aftermath of finding countless bodies before crumbling into tears. Video footage filmed by Masas – as well as other survivors – is presented throughout. Stalinsky reasonably blurs any horrific imagery, yet the footage is still incredibly disturbing.

Absorbing all of this is Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta who now runs the nonprofit Lean In Foundation. Sandberg evokes the audiences’ feelings of shock and horror and sadness, and appropriately asks the question: how can anyone in their right mind excuse rape and murder as a form of resistance?

The opening scenes of Screams Before Silence features Sandberg and survivors walk through a kibbutz that Hamas brutally savaged. Although the imagery is crystal clear, there is a dark fog that hangs over these places, these survivors, and this nation. Screams Before Silence is the light that exposes the horrific truth of that day for all to know.