No Other Land

[MikoTython]

Documents the destruction of a collection of southern West Bank Palestinian Villages that have been under occupation since 1967. Recently their existence has become intolerable to the occupying power, and so the IDF & as always, 'helpful' Jewish Settlers with machine guns have been expelling them.

To that end, they they send out caravans of soldiers in humvees & a bulldozer, knock down a school or houses or chicken houses, pour cement down 'illegal' water welsl - along the way shoot down a few people daring to object in cold blood.

The documentary is made by & features as principals a 2d-generation Palestinian activist and an anti-occupation Israeli Jew. There was some tension, given the difference in hazard/loss facing between them. Worth seeing. Certainly educational.

In one compelling scene, as a family was being evicted from their home, a refrigerator is seen being carried out of the house by the people managing their expulsion, and a settler offers the evicted man a carton of his own milk back. The man knocks it out of the settler's hand, an act of incivility which prompts a great deal of tension. Kindness or mocking scorn. You decide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Other_Land

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masafer_Yatta

[3dender]

I would like to see this but don't know when I will... feels like I've already consumed so much depressing horror about the genocide that I'm not sure if I'm up for 90 straight more minutes of it, or however long this is.

[MikoTython]

It has pretty much swept all the International & Domestic Film Critics awards (including St. Louis). I'll be amazed if it doesn't win the Documentary Oscar.

[todd-parker]

Just need a U.S. distributor so more people can see it.

[3dender]

Just need a U.S. distributor so more people can see it.

good luck to them on that

[MikoTython]

Rather oddly (to me), the BAFTA Doc award went to Super/Man : The Christopher Reeve Story, which isn't even nominated for the Oscars.

Haven't seen it, so maybe it knocked their socks off. Seems like a small ball boutique concern, from here.

[MikoTython]

Just need a U.S. distributor so more people can see it.

You said it. I have no idea what could be the hang-up :

Directed by the Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal alongside the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, “No Other Land” has received critical acclaim and collected many honors on the festival circuit. After winning the best documentary award at its Berlin International Film Festival premiere last February, the film also earned the same prize at the Gotham Awards and from major critics’ groups in New York and Los Angeles. Just weeks ago, it received an Oscar nomination.

Still, no American studio has been willing to pick up this hot-button film, even though distributors typically spend this time of year eagerly boasting about their Oscar-nomination tallies.

“I still think it’s possible, but we’ll have to see,” Abraham told me last week. “It’s clear that there are political reasons at play here that are affecting it. I’m hoping that at a certain point the demand for the film will become so clear and indisputable that there will be a distributor with the kind of courage to take it on and show it to the audience.”

In the meantime, the directors have embarked on a self-distribution plan that has put “No Other Land” into 23 U.S. theaters; on the back of strong box office, it will continue to roll out into additional cities over the coming weeks.

Adra and Abraham are not just part of the film’s directing team, but its two primary subjects. The 28-year-old Adra was raised in Masafer Yatta and has been documenting the forced expulsion since he was a teenager. Over the course of the film, he builds a strong but tense bond with Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem but travels frequently to Masafer Yatta to write about the situation there for an Israeli audience.
...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/movi ... scars.html

Nice interview, if you can get past the paywall.

[MikoTython]

One of the greatest demonstrations of power is the ability to control what may be broadly seen or heard or even mentioned. And beyond that, to control what can be said about those with such power. or that such power even exists.

[MikoTython]

Miami Mayor no likee dis movie. Look what he tried to do about it :

Miami Beach mayor Steven Meiner on Wednesday withdrew a controversial proposal to shutter a local movie theater that screened an Oscar-winning documentary on the war between Israel and Palestine.

Mayor Steven Meiner called the film, titled "No Other Land," a "one-sided propaganda piece" that painted the Israeli Army and Jewish people "in a very negative light." He had introduced a resolution that would end the city's lease with the O Cinema theater and cut government grant funding.

But at a city commission meeting on Wednesday, where speakers denounced attempts to close or censor the movie theatre, he announced that he was withdrawing the proposal.

He said he was deferring an alternative proposal that encouraged the theater to "showcase films that highlight a fair and balanced viewpoint of the current war between the state of Israel and the groups Hamas and Hezbollah."

The film debuted on March 7 at O Cinema, which is located in the old City Hall.

"It definitely triggers emotions," Meiner, who is Jewish, said in a Tuesday virtual town hall ahead of the vote. "I took the time to research it and the facts are a little different than what the movie portrays."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mi ... rcna196949

[MikoTython]

Film Makers Get Another Special Award ...

Oscar-winning Palestinian director is attacked by Israeli settlers and detained by the army
By JULIA FRANKEL
Updated 2:04 AM CDT, March 25, 2025

UPDATE: Lawyer for Oscar-winning Palestinian director detained by Israeli forces says he will be released

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “ No Other Land ” on Monday in the occupied West Bank before he was detained by the Israeli military, according to two of his fellow directors and other witnesses.

The filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya, according to attorney Lea Tsemel, who is representing them. Police told her they were being held at a military base for medical treatment, but she said Tuesday morning that she had not been able to reach them and had no further information on their whereabouts.

Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform — attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones.

“We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” Adra told The Associated Press. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”
...
Adra said that settlers entered the village Monday evening shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A settler — who according to Adra frequently attacks the village — walked over to Ballal’s home with the military, and soldiers shot in the air. Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and scream “I’m dying,” according to Adra.
Basel Adra, from left, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, and Yuval Abraham, winners of the award for best documentary feature film for "No Other Land," pose in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Basel Adra, from left, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, and Yuval Abraham, winners of the award for best documentary feature film for “No Other Land,” pose in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Adra then saw the soldiers lead Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said Ballal’s blood was still splattered on the ground outside his own front door.
...
https://apnews.com/article/no-other-lan ... 59e9b705c2

[3dender]

there you go makin art political

[Ronnie Dobbs]

I would like to see this but don't know when I will... feels like I've already consumed so much depressing horror about the genocide that I'm not sure if I'm up for 90 straight more minutes of it, or however long this is.

I felt the same way, but finally got around to watching it a few weeks ago. Just as I thought, extremely depressing. And now they kidnapped and beat Ballal and basically Hollywood is silent. Really sickening.

[3dender]

I would like to see this but don't know when I will... feels like I've already consumed so much depressing horror about the genocide that I'm not sure if I'm up for 90 straight more minutes of it, or however long this is.

I felt the same way, but finally got around to watching it a few weeks ago. Just as I thought, extremely depressing. And now they kidnapped and beat Ballal and basically Hollywood is silent. Really sickening.

+1