Meet Yoni.
A Canadian-Israeli. Or Israeli-Canadian. Or both.
A filmmaker. A documentarian. Whose journey through life led him to be uniquely prepared to document this moment. For better. For future generations.
Yoni was born in Jerusalem, but grew up in Thornhill, Ontario, a heavily Jewish neighbourhood in the suburbs of Toronto. When he was 18, he returned to Israel to volunteer for Magen David Adom, and dedicated a year and a half of his life to Israel by serving as a Lone Soldier in the IDF. He then returned to Canada to enroll in film school at York University in Toronto, returning to Israel to participate in a documentary workshop, an experience that he credits as fundamental to his documentary style today. During COVID, Yoni enrolled at Sheridan College for a course in television and film production, where he specialized in editing and production.
“I always say that I’m the most Canadian Israeli, and the most Israeli Canadian. That really set me up to be able to do what I’m doing now.” He continues to travel back and forth between Canada and Israel.
When the 2021 war with Gaza broke out, Yoni was in post-grad. He was the only Jew and the only Israeli in the program. That experience shifted his priorities. He went on to direct a short documentary about antisemitism and Holocaust education called “For a New Generation,” currently nearing completion, followed by “Lanterns Flicker,” a documentary about a Canadian veteran who served in Afghanistan who suffers from PTSD yet used music to heal and raise awareness about veteran suicide. “I really got into documenting veterans and PTSD and raising awareness of mental health on that front.”
Between all of this, Yoni would work on shooting music videos and concerts in Canada, as well as commercials, Instagram videos, and general film and video production. And then October 7th happened.
Yoni woke up in his bed in Toronto on October 7th. He had many missed calls and texts from friends; both Jewish and non-Jewish. One of the missed calls was from a friend in the army. “I’m on base. Pretty bad war.” he said. Yoni went straight to social media to see what had unfolded in Israel for himself and was in complete disbelief at what had happened. Immediately he began calling friends and family to make sure everyone he knew was okay. The personal connections to October 7th rolled in quickly. One close friend’s cousin, his girlfriend, and their friend were missing at the Nova Festival. Another friend’s cousin was missing in Kfar Aza (they survived the massacre by spending 30 hours in their bomb shelter). Another acquaintance was missing in Holit, while another was killed fighting for Kibbutz Be’eri. “It was all over the place, and it just kept going and going and going.”
“I knew that I wanted to fly back and document it. But I was not ready yet. I had to be in a good mental space for it.” Yoni had the premiere of Lanterns Flicker in Los Angeles, and once that was over, he finished with his commitments in Toronto and returned to Israel at the end of November.
“It definitely feels like I was designed to be able to do this. Having been in the army and being Israeli and Canadian, speaking both languages and knowing both cultures very, very well. Having experience interviewing Holocaust survivors, PTSD survivors and veterans, Yoni was ready for his next challenge.
“Since the end of November, beginning of December, I have been filming and documenting the sites multiple times. Interviews with survivors, testimonies of released hostages, families of hostages, Zaka, Forensics, police, soldiers, volunteers, Bedouins, Druze, anyone. I’ve been doing it for months now, with no end in sight.”
Yoni has been traveling regularly to Reim, the site of the Nova festival, Be’eri, Nir Oz, Nirim, Kfar Aza, Netiv Ha’asara, Sderot, Ofakim, Kerem Shalom, and Holit too many times to count. As confrontations erupted on the northern border, he traveled to Kiryat Shemona. He has become so familiar with the towns that lay in ruins that he knows which house belonged to which family, who survived and who didn’t.
“There are two kinds of impactful,” he answered when asked what impacted him most. “Some things impact you worse, and some impact you better.”
What he has seen does not get easier with time. “The hardest thing I’ve seen was a burnt baby crib in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Kibbutz Nir Oz was the worst place I’ve seen. I think it’s the worst place I’ve filmed since Auschwitz.” A teddy bear in a bomb shelter, the charred remains of homes, the walls accented with the spray of bullets and blood. “It’s the small things.”
“I filmed at the Bibas house on Kfir’s first birthday, which was tough. Also in Nir Oz.”
“It doesn’t get easier.” Yoni has been going to film the carnage for months. He has forged relationships with the survivors. The closer he becomes to the people of the massacred communities, the harder and more personal it becomes to witness it, but also it becomes increasingly important and powerful. “I now have a lot of friends who were at Nova and now I’m very close to them. I visit their friend’s pictures every time I’m there now.”
“It's interesting now because the first time I went - from a filming standpoint - I was going into Kfar Aza and you can see my camera moving everywhere, figuring out what to see, and you can see me processing it based on how fast I'm moving my camera and trying to capture everything. By the sixth time, I know the houses. I know where everyone lives, I memorize it when I go. It very much sticks with me. So I know exactly what I'm looking at and where I'm going and whose house I'm going to. It feels like I'm going to a place that I've been to, where friends and their families live(d).”
The people, the survivors are what impacted Yoni strongly, for the better.
“They are resilient as hell. Most, if not all, of the people that I have interviewed from the Kibbutzim want to move back. They want to rebuild. It’s mind blowing. And everyone I know from Nova wants to go and keep partying, they want to dance and will go back to festivals. Their resilience struck me a lot.”
Many of the people who lived in the Gaza Envelope, the area that was massacred on October 7th, is home to those who believe most strongly in a future of peace and coexistence. It was known to be a place filled with peace activists. While many now feel that the dream of peaceful coexistence may have been one-sided, they still are full of empathy and compassion – even after everything they have gone through. “You would think they’d want the world to burn, and rightfully so. But they don’t. And that is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“My friend from Nir Oz whose parents are murdered and currently in captivity still has compassion and empathy and is still looking for peace down the line. She keeps me going.”
Yoni has also had the opportunity to film international delegations and trips to meet politicians and dignitaries to share the testimonies of October 7th, and to advocate for political support. He filmed a delegation in Ottawa of the relatives of female Canadians who were killed or kidnapped. He met with politicians across the political spectrum. The action and intention of some was comforting, while others seemed to care more about playing politics. “It was weird being flown to film with world leaders. I did not expect any of this when I started, and I’m in very deep now.” He has also had the opportunity to film at the Hague, when 100 Hostages and family members rallied together, and when lawyers presented a 1000+ page brief to the International Criminal Court with the hopes of seeking justice for many impacted by the horrors of October 7th.
Yoni has not been contracted to film by any particular organization. He is acting as an independent documentarian, and is forging connections directly with the people impacted. He views the collection of testimony and the creation of archival evidence his contribution to this time in Jewish history. “I came knowing that I would do whatever it takes. I see this as my service in place of reserve duty in the army.”
When looking at the antisemitism that has once again reared its ugly head the world over, Yoni’s perspective from his work can give us hope. “The future will rely on people talking to people they disagree with; it’s about having conversations and dialogue. It’s about putting an end to cancel culture. Social media is exacerbating the divide. I think people do need to actually talk to each other, which is a pretty controversial opinion. Social media doesn’t necessarily represent public opinion, it’s just a large amount of hatred.”
The future is uncertain. The war with Hamas in Gaza has gone on longer than anyone has expected, the hostages have still not all come home. Israel is unable to rebuild yet. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced from the North and South of Israel. A war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is only a matter of time.
“I think it will take a long time for the country to heal. It’s going to take a long time for the survivors and their families and everyone to heal and none of that will happen until the hostages are back. We haven’t even entered the phase of Post-Trauma yet, we are still actively in the trauma.”
“I'll say the best thing that I heard from one of my friends in Nir Oz was that if you want a two state solution, if you want peace, your biggest activists and advocates for it are still being held hostage in Gaza. If you truly want peace, you have to get the peace activists out of Gaza. A lot of the people who were living in the kibbutzim who believed in peace and still believe in peace. They are still very human, very empathic, and very compassionate and they still believe in peace. They are also realistic and know that there can't be peace with the current status quo from before October 7. The status quo needs to change.”
Yoni has screened his October 7th footage to sold-out crowds in Canada and Israel. It was attended by family members of hostages, and “thankfully, it was well received.”
The hostages need to come home. Those that are no longer alive need to be buried by their families. Everyone that lives in Israel needs to feel safe – whether they are Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouins, or any other community. Only then can the healing from the trauma begin.
“I hope the day will come when the shadow of constant war ends, and we can have peace.”
Visit www.yonicollins.com to see Yoni’s footage and to donate to his efforts.
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