Back in 2013, David Cunio and his twin brother Eitan played the lead roles in Tom Shoval's feature film Youth. David Cunio was kidnapped by Hamas from the kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023. At once a tribute to the two brothers and a very personal evaluation of a present in which nothing is as it once was.
Youth, which celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale Panorama in 2013, is the story of two brothers from an impoverished family who kidnap a young woman in order to make money. Behind the often-attempted thematic parallels between the fiction of the time and today's reality, Tom Shoval unfurls a puzzle-like panorama of memory and admonition, documentary and reflection. Who are the amateur actors, David and Eitan Cunio, that he discovered back then? What made them so special to him, and what is so special about the relationship between the two brothers? Between the behind-the-scenes footage and family photos, the fictional plot of the past and the murderous reality of today, the personal message of a film-maker is conveyed who, like all of us, is unable to grasp, emotionally, what is happening. Amongst the declarations of love and the mourning, between the laughter during casting and the tears of despair, a stocktaking unfolds of a present that we never expected; and if we had, then surely only as a work of fiction.
Text: Bernd Buder
Credits
original title A Letter to David
international title A Letter to David
german title A Letter to David
JFBB section Documentary Film Competition
country/countries IL, US
year 2025
duration 74
Tom Shoval
BIO Israeli film-maker and screenwriter Tom Shoval has won rave reviews for his sharp visual style and storytelling abilities. His debut feature, Youth (2013), a social drama and thriller, premiered at the Berlinale and was, among other awards, named Best Film at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Alejandro González Iñárritu, two times Academy Award® winner, has personally chosen Shoval as his protégé and produced Shoval's feature film Shake Your Cares Away, starring Berenice Bejo which won the main award at the Jerusalem Film Festival 2021. He wrote and directed a ten-episode TV series – A music drama, The Echo of Your Voice for the Israeli Kan 11 channel. The series was selected in official competition in the "Series Mania" festival and won the prestigious Acting award. Shoval penned June Zero for director Jake Paltrow to be released in the US in 2024. Tom is currently in post-production on the third feature-length film he wrote and directed- Life without Credit, to be delivered during 2025.
