Father Father Brings Israeli-Palestinian Family Story to Rio
A new UK documentary about a gay couple who became parents in Texas on the eve of the Hamas Oct. 7 attack will premiere at Festival do Rio.
Father Father follows Aviv, a Jewish Israeli, and his husband Khader, who is Palestinian-Israeli, Variety reported. The couple travelled to Texas, where a surrogate — a woman who carries a pregnancy for someone else — gave birth to their son Albi just before the attack.
The director is British documentarian Jake Witzenfeld. He has known Khader for more than 10 years, since his 2015 film Oriented about three Palestinian gay men in Tel Aviv in the run-up to the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict.
The new project began simply. In spring 2021 Khader called Witzenfeld to say he and Aviv were thinking about starting a family. Cameras kept rolling as the plan hit a wall.
In the film, a surrogacy agency tells the pair the two parents must share the same religion. That rule pushes them to look abroad and pursue surrogacy in Texas instead.
Witzenfeld discussed that journey in his first interview about the film, given to Variety and published on 2 October 2026. Fremantle is associated with the UK documentary, according to advance festival coverage from ScreenDaily.
In Rio, the film screens under the Portuguese title Pai e Pai. It is competing for the Prêmio Félix, the festival's award for LGBTQIA+PN stories, in the 2026 edition, the festival announced.
The Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival runs from 1 to 11 October, with its RioMarket strand running from 1 to 10 October with panel discussions.
What makes this stand out is the timeline. A private story about paperwork, travel and new parenthood turns, within days, into a story about getting a newborn home as war begins.
