A Film About a Kidnapping Foreshadowed His Own

In 2013, Israeli director Tom Shoval cast twin brothers David and Eitan Cunio to play kidnappers in his debut film, "Youth." It was the first time either had acted. Ten years later, David Cunio was kidnapped for real, dragged from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7th, and held in Gaza for 738 days.

Sharon and David Cunio and their twin daughters

David's wife, Sharon, their three-year-old twin daughters, Yuli and Emma, his younger brother, Ariel, and Ariel's girlfriend, Arbel, were all abducted that day too. Eitan survived by locking himself and his family inside their safe room while Hamas soldiers torched their home in kibbutz Nir Oz.

Making "Youth"

"The Cunio twins were one duo among 200 pairs of brothers we auditioned," Shoval told Aish.com, describing a rigorous and lengthy casting process.

"From the moment they walked into the room, I recognized exactly what I had been looking for -- a strong, immediate bond. Their togetherness was stronger than either of them as individuals."

Shoval was drawn to the "choreography" between the twins. "They completed one another in every way, in thought, in speech, in action. It was hard to imagine one without the other. They had complete symbiosis."

The Cunio brothers in the film, “Youth”

The Cunio brothers, for their part, never imagined they'd actually be cast. "As far as they were concerned, they'd simply come up from the south for a fun day in Tel Aviv," Shoval said. "But they saw how serious I was, and they surrendered to that. Their ability to surrender completely to something unfamiliar -- to someone like me, at the time -- and follow it all the way through, is part of what makes them unique. They're deeply human, loyal, genuine."

Stranger than Fiction

"On October 7th, I was in Berlin, working in a writers' room on a German science-fiction series. I looked at my phone and understood the meaning of 'everything went black.' I saw black. I knew the attack was in the south of Israel, and my first thought was of the Cunio family."

Only once Shoval landed back in Israel did the full magnitude hit him.

"I was beside myself, worried about my close friend and creative partner. The reality was so much more horrific that it emptied my film of its original meaning. I found myself wondering what was going through David's mind in the tunnels of Gaza. Was he also thinking about the fact that he'd played a kidnapper ten years earlier?"

"It's beyond comprehension," he added. "A profound anxiety gripped me, just as it did every citizen of the country as it was plunged into its most terrifying existential war yet."

Alongside that anxiety came an irrational feeling of guilt. "I think those feelings, together with the urgent need to raise awareness about David's situation and the other hostages, are what drove me to make the documentary, 'A Letter to David.'"

Creating The Documentary

Shoval had been closely following, and taking part in, the efforts to free the Cunios. David's wife and daughters were freed in the first hostage exchange in November 2023, but David and Ariel remained in captivity.

Three-year-old twins Emma and Yuli Cunio and their mother Sharon Aloni Cunio leave Schneider Children’s Medical Center on December 7, 2023. (Courtesy of Schneider Children’s Medical Center)

"Their fate was tied to the fragile, uncertain implementation of the ceasefire agreement. During that prolonged, cruel period, I went back to the raw footage from the movie we'd made together, along with the behind-the-scenes material from our work together. I rediscovered them -- I saw them speaking to me in their interviews, walking the paths of the kibbutz, meeting friends, some of whom were murdered on October 7th, others who were in captivity in Gaza."

Using that unedited footage, along with audition tapes from "Youth," Shoval built a documentary that became a personal cinematic letter to David, one that wrestles with profound questions about life and death.

"During the making of the film, I realized that cinema and reality are like the Cunio brothers -- two that are one whole, a symbiotic movement that can't exist without both parts," Shoval said.

Executive producer Nancy Spielberg (Steven Spielberg's sister) was in Israel on October 7th and wanted to help Shoval make the film.

"Hearing how this close family was torn apart really affected me. One of their three-year-old twins was missing -- they thought she was dead. Instead, a terrorist had taken her and placed her in a home with someone to care for her, while the other twin was moved several times and eventually held in a hospital -- a Hamas hiding spot -- with other hostages."

Family Bonds

The Cunio family was moved to hear that Shoval and his team were making the film. "They understood it could help raise awareness, as part of the struggle to bring the hostages home."

David Cunio (Photo credit: Yaniv Linton)

It mattered to Shoval that the family be involved throughout. "I wanted to make a film that I was certain David would feel comfortable with. The family was the closest possible reflection of David while he was still in captivity. The Cunios are an extraordinary family, and they trusted me completely."

The hardest part, Shoval said, was filming, editing, and screening the documentary while David's fate remained entirely out of his own hands. "But I held on to the act of creation in an almost irrational way, driven by the belief that the film had to have an ending."

Ever since the Cunio brothers appeared in Shoval's film, "our fates have become intertwined," he said. "David met his wife Sharon on the set of that film, and they later got married. We stayed in touch through the years. We're still very close today. I see myself as the family's fifth brother. That's how open-hearted this extraordinary family is."

About three weeks after David and the other hostages came home, Shoval went to see him. "It was the most emotional meeting of my life. We hugged, we talked about everything, and I told him -- as he already knew -- that I'd always said this was an unfinished film. That it wouldn't be finished until we could film the ending, with him and Ariel."

David was deeply moved, and told Shoval he'd be "very happy" to film it. "It was a defining moment of grace within an impossible reality."

"A Letter to David" screens at the Rochester Jewish Film Festival, the São Paulo Jewish Film Festival, the Kolnoa Israeli Film Festival, and other events this fall.