A documentary examining the experiences of four Australian Jewish creatives following the October 7 attacks has itself become the subject of debate after being rejected by Australia’s major public broadcasters and leading film festivals.
Cancelled, directed by Walkley Award-winning filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe, follows musician Deborah Conway, visual artist Nina Sanadze, writer Joshua Dabelstein and circus artist Talia Sofizade as they navigate threats, professional consequences and what the filmmaker describes as antisemitism and “cancel culture” within Australia’s arts sector.
The documentary, supported by the Jewish Australian Screen Fund and produced by Jump Street Films, will premiere as the opening film of the 2026 Jewish International Film Festival in Sydney on September 16 and Melbourne on September 17.
Ben-Moshe told The Australian Jewish News that he had submitted a rough cut of the documentary to the ABC on December 14, 2025, the morning of the Bondi Beach terror attack.
It is reported that the ABC subsequently declined the documentary. SBS also declined to commission or acquire the film, according to Ben-Moshe.
The filmmaker also submitted the documentary to the Sydney and Melbourne international film festivals, both of which rejected it.
Ben-Moshe said the experience was particularly ironic given that the documentary itself explores the experience of Jewish creatives being excluded or “cancelled”.
“The people who should be documenting this are not. They’re just not interested,” Ben-Moshe told The AJN.
“They don’t see us, or they don’t care about us, or our story conflicts with the narrative.”
The Sydney Film Festival was among the festivals approached by Ben-Moshe. He said its programming team had initially indicated that it wanted to screen an early version of the documentary, provided the final cut was not substantially different.
According to Ben-Moshe, after the final version was submitted, he received a generic rejection.
The Jewish Australian Screen Fund said Cancelled was one of three films it supported that were rejected by the Sydney Film Festival. It said that across 18 submissions involving five films supported by the fund, nine Australian festivals rejected every submission.
The fund also pointed to the absence of Jewish community-focused documentaries from recent major festival programs.
Sydney Film Festival screened more than 60 documentaries in June, according to the figures cited by the fund, while the Melbourne International Film Festival featured more than 100 films in August. The fund said neither program included a documentary focused on Australia’s Jewish community.
The festivals have not publicly stated that the films were rejected because they were Jewish-focused or dealt with antisemitism.
The ABC said its commissions and acquisitions were subject to a “competitive process that considers a range of factors”.
An SBS spokesperson said the broadcaster had a “long-standing record of commissioning and broadcasting Jewish-authored and themed content” and operated in a “highly competitive commissioning environment”. SBS also said it continued to explore antisemitism through its programming.
Ben-Moshe, whose previous work includes Shalom Bollywood, Revenge: Our Dad, the Nazi Killer and the SBS documentary Strictly Jewish, said the experience had been difficult for Jewish creatives working in the Australian arts sector.
“Just being Jewish was an act of provocation,” he said.
He said Cancelled was not intended to exclude Palestinian stories or discussion of the war in Gaza.
“Let me be clear: I have zero problem at all with Palestinian stories being told, or with stories about what has happened in Gaza,” he said.
“But I do have a problem when we cannot tell the Jewish Australian story or experience.”
The documentary developed after Ben-Moshe became interested in Sanadze’s Goldstone Gallery in Collingwood, which she established to provide a platform for artists whose work had been cancelled or marginalised.
Ben-Moshe said he began filming after the Adass Israel synagogue building was firebombed in December 2024.
The documentary was filmed over approximately a year and includes material from Australia and Israel, including the Nova festival site and Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Ben-Moshe said some of the filming in Nir Oz was among the most confronting experiences of his career, including footage of homes left largely untouched after the October 7 attacks.
The filmmaker said the documentary was made with Jewish philanthropic support and, where possible, Jewish creatives were involved in the production.
“I had to say to anyone who donated money to the film, there is no guarantee that this film will see the light of day,” he said.
“But at a minimum, let’s give the mainstream broadcasters and the mainstream festivals in this country the opportunity to tell this story.”
The four subjects came into the documentary through their own experiences. Dabelstein was connected to the Goldstone Gallery, while Sofizade met Sanadze after an incident at a Melbourne restaurant. Conway became involved after Ben-Moshe filmed her performing in Sydney amid online threats, according to the filmmaker.
Ben-Moshe said the documentary was ultimately a story about resilience rather than simply cancellation.
“It’s a story about standing up to it. It’s a story about our resilience. It’s a story about digging deep,” he said.
The film will launch the 2026 Jewish International Film Festival program, with screenings in Sydney on Wednesday, September 16, and Melbourne on Thursday, September 17.
Each screening will be followed by a Q&A, moderated by AJN national deputy editor Jessica Abelsohn in Sydney and AJN journalist Dahlia D’Onghia in Melbourne.
The documentary is also scheduled to screen on Sky later in the year.
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