Israeli-Palestinian film ‘No Other Land’ has won the Oscar 97th Academy Awards best documentary film award.
Set in the town of Masafar Yatta in the occupied West Bank, the film is directed by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra.
Its shortlisting for the Oscar was announced on Thursday despite the film not having any distribution deal in the US.
Much of ‘No Other Land’ is made up of footage dating back to Adra’s childhood showing his activist father squaring off against Israeli soldiers and settlers in order to stop appropriation of Palestinian land.
The movie previously won the Documentary Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, otherwise known as Berlinale film festival, in February last year.
Accepting that award, Abraham and Adra sparked outrage for using their winners’ speech to condemn the occupation of Palestine.
“I am free to move where I want in this land, but Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end,” said Abraham.
The speech sent shockwaves through the German cultural establishment, with politicians issuing condemnations of the pair and accusing them of being “antisemitic”.
In November, Abraham told Middle East Eye that Germany’s obsessive crackdown on pro-Palestinian behaviour was making life increasingly difficult for Jews and Israelis like himself who wanted to see an end to the war on Gaza.
“I was surprised by the reaction in Germany,” said Abraham.
“I think Germany says that it is supporting Israel and the Israelis, but it’s actually supporting Israelis who believe in continuing the occupation and who, in a way echo the policies of their governments.”
Despite the film’s positive critical reception, it has faced difficulties finding distribution companies willing to take it on inside the US.
The struggle to find distribution for the film is being blamed on a censorious atmosphere in the entertainment industry, which seeks to curtail criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
“This simplistic vision of what it means to support Israelis or to support Jewish people… diplomatically, financially, to continue doing what we show in the film, which is to continue working to prevent a Palestinian state,” Abraham said.
“I believe that they have not only acted against Palestinians, but they have also acted against Israelis. Because I see the two people as connected. And I believe that security is always going to be a mutual endeavour.”
Core resistance
The controversy over the film’s release, however, only heightened the interest for the subjects of the film, the residents of Masafer Yatta.
For decades, the Israeli authorities have attempted to evict the around 1,000 Palestinian inhabitants of Masafer Yatta, in order to create a military “firing zone”, or training ground for Israeli forces.
Their home lies within Area C of the West Bank, which remains under the full authority of Israel and is littered with settlements, illegal under international law, whose inhabitants regularly harass Palestinians, vandalise their homes and vehicles and shoot them.
Adra said following the controversy in Germany he arranged for a major screening of the film in his home village.
No Other Land: An Israeli-Palestinian duo fight to expose apartheid as war rages in Gaza
“They really wanted to see it after all the news, because of what happened in Berlinale and the attacks on me, and on Yuval by the Israeli media and other media in Germany,” he said.
Since 7 October 2023, there has been an explosion of settler violence in the West Bank and Masafer Yatta has been no exception.
In 2024, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians was the worst on record, according to the UN.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) registered 1,400 incidents by settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, including physical assaults, arson attacks, raids on Palestinian communities and the destruction of fruit trees.
The attacks have coincided with sweeping movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli army, denying Palestinians access to cities, towns and villages.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in roughly 300 illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, all of which have been built since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 conflict.
Under international law, settlement construction in an occupied territory is illegal.
“For us, the movie is an act of core resistance and we wanted to we wanted to show it as fast as we could when it was done,” said Adra.
On the other hand, Abraham has been dismayed to see the country swamped by ultra-nationalist and irredentist fervour in which no number of Palestinian deaths seems to provoke any sympathy.
“There is an Israeli left – it’s not represented politically today and it’s very small and it’s more and more persecuted by the government. The space for criticism really shrunk since 7 October,” he explained.
“The Israeli parties are not willing to show even the most basic level of criticism towards the Israeli army, despite the highest court in the world flagging its military operations for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
