It has been an emotional few days for Israeli director Tom Shoval whose longtime friend David Cunio was among 20 living Israeli hostages released from Gaza on Monday after two years of captivity.
Shoval, who first befriended Cunio and his twin brother Eitan when they starred in his 2013 first feature Youth, was at the forefront of efforts to ensure his friend’s plight was not forgotten with his 2025 film A Letter to David.
“I guess everything about yesterday and today is about closure in a way,” Shoval told Deadline on Tuesday evening.
“When I was making the film, it was without knowing what was going to happen and whether he was going to come back… I always believed in that but you’re waiting for this to come, and then it comes… I’m feeling like I’m closing a lot of circles.”
David and Ariel Cunio wave after arriving in Israel following their release on October 13
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Monday’s release marked the end of an ordeal which began on October 7, 2023 with the Hamas-led terror attacks on Southern Israeli, in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 abducted.
With his wife Sharon, their then two-year-old twin daughters, brother Ariel and his partner Arbel, Cunio was among 76 people kidnapped from the Nir Oz kibbutz some four miles (7km) from the Gaza border, while another 47 inhabitants were killed.
A Letter to David, which world premiered at the Berlinale in February 2025, was also sparked by the fact that in Youth, the Cunios play brothers who kidnap a young woman in a scheme to pay off family debts.
“I felt guilty after October 7. I said to myself, ‘What the hell did you do, inventing this story in Youth in which David kidnapped somebody?’,” recalled Shoval. “It was like reality slaps you with this cruel twist. I was very agitated about that.”
Shoval made the documentary, produced by Nancy Spielberg, both as a personal message to his friend and with the aim of drawing attention to his situation, as the hostage crisis dragged on and became normalized.
It builds a picture of Cunio, mixing behind-the-scenes footage of the Youth shoot, including as they rehearsed the abduction scenes; home videos about life in Nir Oz and post October 7 interviews with his family, including Sharon, who was released with their daughters in November 2023.
It also features a harrowing account by Eitan Cunio, who also lived in Nir Oz, of how he escaped by hiding in his home’s safe room, amid fear of dying by asphyxiation or being burned alive as the attackers started setting buildings alight.
Shoval reveals that when the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, hopes were high that David might be on the cusp of being released under a fragile ceasefire deal secured in January 25.
They were dashed when the ceasefire collapsed in March and Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza, that overall has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians over the arc of two years.
Some 30 hostages were released before the two-month ceasefire crumbled, including Yarden Bibas and Sagui Dekel-Chen, who were also both abducted from Nir Oz.
Both men reported having seen Cunio during their time in captivity, although the family had no news during this period on his brother Ariel.
“They moved them from place to place so sometimes they would meet in the tunnels,” said Shoval.
“David has said since that he was mostly was alone but there were periods of time when he was with somebody. He was for two months or so with Sagui and was also with Yarden Bibas for a week, who is his best friend and is in the film.”
Bibas’ return on February 1 was marked by tragedy following news that his wife Shiri Silberman Bibas, and their two young sons, four-year-old Ariel and nine-month Kfir had likely died.
This was confirmed when the children’s bodies were returned to Israel on February 20, followed by that of their mother the next day.
The fresh news on Cunio as well as the updates on the other hostages, meant the film was constantly evolving and changing, even after it premiered in Berlin in mid-February.
“When we screened the film in Berlin, Shiri was still missing. We didn’t know what was going on with her and the children, and then her body was returned in the second deal with the children,” recalled Shoval, who updated the information in the film on the status of the hostages.
“I changed the titles for those who were released from still in captivity; to ‘released’,” he explains. “Then Shiri’s body was returned so I had to change that, which is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done… it came with an understanding that that was it. It also came with this fear that one day, I might have to do the same thing for David and Ariel. It was terrifying.”
Shoval has always said that he did not consider the film finished until Cunio made it back home. It is a pledge he now plans to uphold with a fresh ending.
“I promised Eitan when we started to do the film that at whatever point they came back, no matter what stage the film was in, I would open it up and bring a new ending, the ending it deserves,” said Shoval.
“So, I’m going to do that, not immediately, because I want to give David space to heal a little bit. Also, he hasn’t seen the film yet, which is also a weird situation, because I did the film while he was still in captivity… I think the next step is for him to see it, so that me and him will have this closure and then I will shoot a special ending with him to the film.”
Shoval has yet to see Cunio face to face, with his friend still recuperating in hospital and reconnecting with his family.
“They’re going to be in hospital for two weeks. This is a process. Somebody said, it’s like they’re being born again, and I think that’s kind of accurate. They are coming back to the world,” said Shoval.
“I don’t want to be there in this very gentle and intimate moment. I want to give him the space that he needs and also to the family, who haven’t seen him for two years, and his daughters. I will probably see him in the next few days, but I will not bring a camera inside this meeting. It will take a moment.”
Shoval also hopes to move on with other projects, which have been hold during this period.
“When you have a film that’s not finished, you know, it’s weird to do other stuff, but I’ve started to work on other projects and I’m hoping that I will shoot something next year, although the environment for Israel and Israeli films and projects is a little bit dark. I hope art will prevail again.”
It remains to be seen if the Gaza peace plan brokered by President Donald Trump and his team holds to also bring relief to the two million people living in the Palestinian territory, which has been razed to the ground by the Israeli military campaign.
Shoval hopes a path to peace can be found: “A consequence of the catastrophe that we call war is how it sucks out every drop of humanity, and we need to fight that. We need to do everything we can to make us closer to peace and to understanding, to help the people in Gaza and the people in Israel to get out of this, to a new era.”
