Our Story

Unaware that by morning our lives would change forever, on the night before October 7, 2023, my friends and I from Kibbutz Be’eri celebrated a bachelor party on the beach in Ashdod. At 6:30 AM, air sirens signaled a heavy rocket attack. I received my mother’s final text message from her home in Be’eri: "Terrorists are inside the house. They shot at the safe room door. I’m hit in the arm. There’s blood all over the room." After ten grueling days during which she was considered missing, the devastating message arrived: Mom had been murdered.

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A community of 1,200, lost 100 of its members. Nearly every friend at the party either was orphaned or lost a close friend or family member that day. The trauma shattered our sense of security and certainty. As the devastated community found refuge in hotels, we faced profound questions: How long would we stay? Could we return to Be’eri? What did 'home' and 'community' mean to us now?

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My name is Mika Kalderon, a third-generation kibbutz member and filmmaker. I decided to document myself and my friends as we grapple with these questions and undergo profound changes. This film starts in destruction and sorrow and aims to end with hope and recovery. It captures the doubts and crises my friends and I undergo as we part with our previous lives and reshape our future. The physical reconstruction of Be’eri will take about two years. It is a time frame during which the internal and emotional processes will also take place. We intend to follow these closely.

 

The film is supported by The Israel Cinema Project operated by the Yehoshua Rabinovitch Foundation.