October 8 is a powerful new documentary that needs to be seen by all ethnicities across the globe.

The emergence of anti-Semitism on college campuses, in social media and on the streets since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel has been rampant not only in North America, but aruond the world.

The new documentary, October 8th from Director Wendy Sachs says the idea of putting the film together it all started when she went to her daughter’s University campus after the October 7th attacks.

Sachs says she did not make the documentary for Jewish audiences. She wants everyone to see it if only to understand what antisemitism is, the privileges and limits of free speech, why the rhetoric against Jews became so filled with hate, why so many presidents of elite universities resigned or were fired from their positions in the aftermath of the pro-Palestine protests.

This film strikes a chord with Canadian audiences because what is happening across the border is also happening right here at home. In Canada, Jewish people witnessed an alarming surge in antisemitism, both on university and college campuses and on our streets after the October 7 attack.

The film features Emmy-award winning actress Debra Messing, who appears on camera and also serves as executive producer, actor-comedian Michael Rapapport, former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, Mosab Hassan Yousef (son of Hamas’s founder Mosab Hassan Yousef), and college students Tessa Veksler, Noa Fay and Talia Khan, among others.

Wendy Sachs is an award-winning filmmaker, who directed SURGE (2020), which chronicled the historic 2018 midterm elections when a record number of first-time female candidates ran for Congress looking to flip their red districts to blue. She also directed LAND OF THE GIANTS: TITANS OF TECH, which delved into the complex histories of global tech powerhouses like Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Netflix, exploring their rise to dominance and the challenges they face today. Wendy also produced the documentary GEN Z of the “My Generation” series that aired on MSNBC in October 2024

OCTOBER 8  is currently in theatres across the U.S. and opens in Canada on April 4th.

Bonnie Laufer spoke with director Wendy Sachs about why working on this documentary was so important to her.