On the morning of October 7, 2023, Dr Gedalya Fendel could have stayed inside his home on Moshav Shuva with his wife and four children. Instead, he walked out onto the road and started treating the wounded.
As the hours wore on and the roads became too dangerous, Fendel began sending survivors who didn’t need urgent medical care to his house, where his wife Merav and their children took them in.
By the end of the day, a group of strangers had gathered inside. A pregnant woman whose house had been set on fire, grandparents who had spent 13 hours hiding on Kibbutz Be’eri, and two young children from Kibbutz Kfar Aza who had watched their parents be murdered.
They didn’t know each other. But in the hours that followed, they became something like a family.
“I think that’s how we actually connect to what happened on October 7 – not through more gore or horrific images, but through people. When you meet these families, you recognise yourself in them. You recognise your parents, your children, your spouse.”
That story is at the heart of Safe Room, a new documentary by award-winning American filmmaker Haley Geffen, which will screen in Sydney through Gesher NSW.
Geffen first heard Fendel’s story in May 2024, during a volunteer trip to Israel. He was speaking to a small group, mostly retirees, and she remembers sitting there thinking the story was too important for such a small room.
“What struck me was how ordinary Gedalya was. He’s a doctor, a husband, a father of four,” Geffen told The AJN. “On October 7, he could have stayed inside his home with his family, but he felt like he had to do something. He couldn’t just sit there and watch what was happening around him.”
Once she started learning about the other families who ended up in his home, the story grew.
Among them were nine-year-old Michael Idan and his six-year-old sister Amalia, who had hidden in a closet for 14 hours after witnessing the murders of both their parents on Kibbutz Kfar Aza. They were certain their younger sister Avigail had also been killed. She had in fact been taken hostage in Gaza, where she was held for 50 days.
And there was Sapir Ben Ezra, a woman approaching her due date who had stopped feeling her baby move after terrorists set her house on fire. She arrived terrified. Fendel realised what she needed most was rest, food and care. And his family could give her that.
“These were people who woke up that morning expecting a normal Saturday with their families,” Geffen said. “They weren’t people who ever expected to become part of history.
“I think that’s how we actually connect to what happened on October 7 – not through more gore or horrific images, but through people. When you meet these families, you recognise yourself in them. You recognise your parents, your children, your spouse.”
There are no reenactments in Safe Room, and no graphic imagery. Geffen made a conscious decision to stay close to the families and follow their experience from sunrise to sunset.
“There is an enormous responsibility that comes with someone trusting you with the worst day of their life,” she said. “But what surprised me was how much hope I found in making the film. For all the horror surrounding that day, this particular story is ultimately about people showing up for one another.”
“Ultimately, it is a story of hope, and I think that is just as important for us to hold onto as we continue to remember and honour October 7.”
That sense of hope is what has stayed with audiences. Geffen said the feedback has been overwhelming. People have reached out days and even weeks after watching it, still thinking about the families.
“So many people have lost hope. And somehow this film seems to remind them that hope can return,” she said. “One thing I hear over and over is, ‘You don’t just watch this film, you feel it.'”
For Geffen, there is something deeply Jewish in the story too.
“We are a people who have been through incredibly difficult times, and continue to go through them, but we survive. We persevere. And when it really comes down to it, we show up for one another regardless of who you are or where you come from.”
UIA NSW head of engagement Rebecca Abraham said she chose Safe Room because of what it offers beyond bearing witness.
“While we have a responsibility to bear witness to what happened on October 7, I also wanted to make it personal, to tell the story through the people who lived it,” Abraham said.
“The film doesn’t shy away from the devastation of that day, but it also shows us something else – extraordinary courage, humanity, resilience and the people of Israel at their very best.
“Ultimately, it is a story of hope, and I think that is just as important for us to hold onto as we continue to remember and honour October 7.”
Safe Room has already screened at the DocuText Festival at the National Library of Israel.
It was Gedalya Fendel who told his story to a small room of people back in May 2024. Everything that has happened since, Geffen said, has just been about making that room bigger.
For tickets to the Gesher NSW screening, visit uiaaustralia.org.au/events/gesher-presents-safe-room
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