Torn: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on New York City Streets
Sep 05, 2025 | IMDB 8
76 min Watch NowDocumentary
After Hamas kidnapped 251 people from Israel on October 7, and as Israel’s war in Gaza unfolded, a conflict thousands of miles away erupted on New York’s walls. TORN captures the emotional fallout of the now-iconic “KIDNAPPED” poster campaign - a grassroots act of solidarity that quickly became a flashpoint, igniting fierce confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian New Yorkers. Through the voices of artists, activists, and hostage families, the film unpacks the motivations behind those putting up and tearing down the posters, exposing a complex proxy war fought in stickers, slogans, and torn paper. By revealing how a distant war fractured daily life in one of the world’s most diverse cities, the film forces a reckoning with identity, free speech, and empathy in an age of polarization.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
This Is My Land
Something from There
Here and Elsewhere
Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone
Waltz with Bashir
Waiting for Farajallah
War Photographer
Journey into Gaza
BETWEEN
Borderline
Gaza Calling
Detained
We Will Dance Again
Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority
Wild Plants of Palestine
Closeness to the Land
The Judge
Guy Hircefeld: A Guy with a Camera
Countdown to Eternity
A Play Before The Bombs
SIMILAR MOVIES
This Is My Land
IMDB 5.5 | Sep , 2014
Israeli-born director Tamara Erde visits six independently-run Israeli and Palestinian schools to investigate how history is taught in this contested region.Something from There
IMDB 0 | Sep , 2020
Something from there is a short film on the substance of our original lands. Weaving between the voices of the artist’s parents, one a refugee and the other not, the film is personal, yet evokes a shared Palestinian experience.Here and Elsewhere
IMDB 6.5 | Sep , 1976
Here and Elsewhere takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family watching television at home. Originally shot by the Dziga Vertov Group as a film on Palestinian freedom fighters, Godard later reworked the material alongside Anne-Marie Miéville.Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone
IMDB 9.8 | Feb , 2025
Follow the lives of four young people trying to survive the Israel-Hamas war as they hope for a ceasefire - a vivid and unflinching view of life in a warzone.Waltz with Bashir
IMDB 7.7 | Jun , 2008
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.Waiting for Farajallah
IMDB 0 | May , 2019
We are taken behind the scenes of a play in-the-making: The play is Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT—starring a group of young 48-Palestinians. One by one, we are introduced to a variety of characters: the play’s director, actors, and other ordinary people. As we delve further into each of their lives, the film reveals the startling parallels between the themes of the play and their own. Everyone is waiting for something: a permit to build a house, better work conditions, a starring role in a film. Much like Waiting for Godot, our heroes are awaiting Faraj Allah… something that may or may not come.War Photographer
IMDB 7.6 | Nov , 2001
Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.Journey into Gaza
IMDB 8.4 | Nov , 2024
“In Gaza you have to get there in the evening, in spring, lock yourself in your room and from there listen to the sounds coming in through the open window.... It's 2018. I am 25 years old and a foreign traveler. I meet young Palestinians my age..”BETWEEN
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2025
Initially embarking on an unplanned personal filmmaking project, Ilias Boukhemoucha finds himself drawn to the overlooked corners and marginalized communities within Canadian cities.Borderline
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2025
Gaza Calling
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2012
Samer lives in Ramallah in the West Bank. His family lives in Gaza, one hour away. They have not seen each other for six years. When Mustafa went for a visit to Gaza in 2006, he was 18 years old. He was never allowed to return – his mother Hekmat has been fighting to see him again for seven years now. Two families torn apart. They share the same “crime”: being registered with a Gaza address in their Identity Cards. Under Israeli rule, they are considered “infiltrators” in their own country. Their lives have turned into a permanent struggle. Parents can only talk to their sons on the phone; sisters can only see their brothers on the internet – mothers and their children fighting to be together at last…Detained
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2001
Najwa, Nawal, and Siham, three Palestinian widows, live with their 11 children in a house on Shuhada Street in Hebron. Their house lies on the border; the façade is under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority controls the back. At the entrance to the house is a military post; on the roof the Israeli army has placed a watch point over Palestinian Hebron. The three women, trapped in the middle and constantly surrounded by Israeli soldiers, carry on their difficult lives in a perverse situation: the occupation becomes a routine, the absurd becomes a given. This is the story of an occupation that extends to the staircase and the roof of the house, where it encounters poverty, loneliness, pain, but also the small joys of everyday life. This is an internal prison, the external one is the ongoing occupation.We Will Dance Again
IMDB 8.1 | Aug , 2024
A music festival symbolizing peace, freedom, and eternal love transforms into a horrifying nightmare of terror. Survivors, marked by death and trauma, reconstruct the event through their perspectives, embodying the lost innocence and beauty of youth, forever scarred by the tragic events that unfolded. This is a horrifying glimpse through the eyes of the individuals who endured the brutal October 7th onslaught at the Nova Music Festival.Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority
IMDB 7.5 | Mar , 2006
A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.Wild Plants of Palestine
IMDB 0 | Apr , 2018
The film follows journeys of observational tours solicited by the Palestinian Museum and conducted by two professors from Birzeit University to collect photos of and information on the Palestinian Flora. The title is adapted from a collection of 123 images (circa 1900 to 1920) of wild flowers in Palestine found in the Matson Collection in the Library of Congress. Despite the tendency to trace the wild plants, the text in general aims at questioning the territorial extension of what is meant by the term “Palestinian”, while standing on insignificant topographical features of the (postcolonial) landscape in West Bank. Furthermore, it addresses photography as a practice and a tool of distributing and restricting information at once.Closeness to the Land
IMDB 0 | May , 2022
In 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning, Gazala purchased land in western Ohio, on which sits a disused school building. This site allowed her to explore her complex relationship with “the land.” As the daughter of displaced indigenous Palestinians, she attempts to form a proxy bond with the earth, on ground that was stolen from the displaced indigenous Shawnee people. Closeness to the Land is video footage of hand-painted text signs that translate the word الأرض (ard) into six English words, displayed performatively in multiple locations to capture the now-invisible nature of indigenous culture in Ohio. These signs were installed on the old schoolhouse in early 2021.The Judge
IMDB 6.1 | Sep , 2017
A verité legal drama about Judge Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman appointed to a Shari'a court in the Middle East, whose career provides rare insights into both Islamic law and gendered justice.Guy Hircefeld: A Guy with a Camera
IMDB 0 | Sep , 2018
Guy Hircefeld, a veteran who served in the Israeli military at the start of its occupation of Palestine in the 1980s, now fights against the Israeli occupation. His only weapon is a camera.Countdown to Eternity
IMDB 10 | Jan , 1999
Bible expert Bill Gallatin explores biblical prophecies from the Book of Revelation that have transpired, with a discussion of whether these events signify that we are now living in the End Times preceding the return of Jesus Christ. Gallatin touches on events such as the increasingly acute difficulties in the Middle East, numerous environmental catastrophes, earthquakes and more, explaining how they connect to scriptural writings.A Play Before The Bombs
IMDB 0 | Nov , 2021
Set in the al-Mishal Cultural Center in Gaza before it was destroyed by an Israeli air strike on August 9, 2018, A Play Before The Bombs is a story that unfolds over a 4 year period. The film follows Abeer Ahmed, a young woman growing up in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp, the largest refugee camp in Gaza, as she and the other members of her cast and crew prepare to put on a play that focuses on a Palestinian woman’s right to receive inheritance. While the content of the play is tailored towards fostering a cultural discussion among Palestinians, neither the play nor the playhouse can escape the omnipresence of the Israeli siege on Gaza. A siege that shatters literal buildings as well as the hopes and dreams of the performers and community members who take refuge within the walls of al-Mishal in search of artistic fulfillment.