‘No Other Land’ Wins Best Documentary Feature Oscar
Beating out fellow nominees “Sugarcane,” “Porcelain War,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” and “Black Box Diaries,” the Palestinian/Israeli doc “No Other Land” has won Best Documentary Feature at the 97th Academy Awards. Helmed by the film’s two central figures, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, along with Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, the tragic exposé reveals the long-held inequities faced by Palestinians in the community of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank.
As Adra and his family constantly have their home and belongings ripped from them amidst the Israeli Defense Forces’s continued encroachment and settlement of their land, the young Palestinian man is forced to decide between a submissive life of constant uncertainty or risking it all by acting in opposition to this oppression. An outsider to Adra’s community, Abraham works to fight alongside these individuals and end their suffering, only to discover that this is not a battle with a clear conclusion in sight.
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“Masafer Yatta is completely under the Israeli military control. If we want to build a home, we need the permission,” said Adra in an interview on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast back in November 2024. “In the past decade, Israel has made our life in these areas unlivable, preventing people to have clean water to drink, water for their animals, preventing people access to land where they can cultivate and feed their animals, preventing people to have homes or schools.”
Upon accepting the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film, Adra told the crowd at the Dolby Theatre, “About two months ago I became a father, and my hope to my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now; Always fearing settler violence, home demolitions, and forcible displacements that my community Masafer Yatta is living and facing every day under military occupation.”
Making a plea for unity, Abraham added, “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th, which must be freed. When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and that still is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution. Without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people, and I have to say, as I’m here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.”
“No Other Land” was largely shot prior to the October 7 attacks Hamas made against Israel in 2023, but by releasing in its aftermath, the film has garnered a great deal of controversy. Despite multiple wins across awards season — from Best Documentary Film at Berlinale 2024 where it had its world premiere to Outstanding Non-Fiction Feature at the 2024 CinemaEye Honors — and despite being the top grossing Best Documentary nominee, the film still remains without an official U.S. distributor (though Cinetic Media has been handling its bookings at theaters across the country). Also speaking on Filmmaker Toolkit, Abraham shared his thoughts on how “No Other Land” was kept from being seen and how he hopes that will change with the greater attention being put on it.
“It’s a crime if it’s not out there to be seen, to spark conversations,” Abraham said. “Maybe some distributors are afraid to engage with the topic of Israel and Palestine, but isn’t this why we’re making documentaries, to spark [conversations]? Even if you label this as politically sensitive, I think anybody who watches the film leaves it feeling there’s a very deep truth in the film.”
To both celebrate the film’s Oscar nomination and provide further context for the ongoing battle between Israeli forces and Palestinian civilians, Adra recently contributed a guest column to IndieWire. In addition to outlining further atrocities committed since making “No Other Land,” Adra also made a call to action, pleading for further global support in ending the horrors taking place in Gaza and the West Bank.
“‘No Other Land’ wasn’t just a creative endeavor for me; it was an act of resistance,” wrote Adra. “By bringing the story of Masafer Yatta — and the issue of ethnic cleansing and home demolitions in the West Bank — to audiences worldwide, we did not seek to evoke sorrow or pity, but to inspire action, and urge people to join our struggle against the occupation.”
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