In the space of a single week, the Toronto International Film Festival will premiere an Israeli drama about Oct. 7 — Avi Nesher’s Our Loves and Hosam Abu Dan’s Thirteen in Gaza, a portrait of a father and his teenage daughter navigating life as refugees, shot entirely in Gaza during the ongoing war. Both screenings are sold out. Both will likely struggle to find a U.S. buyer. (Gersh and Other Angle Pictures are handling sales on Our Loves at TIFF; MAD World has Thirteen in Gaza.) The war in Israel and Gaza continues to dominate headlines, but for most mainstream domestic distributors, any film about Israel or Palestine remains a toxic…
