An Israeli-Palestinian Documentary Has An Oscar Nomination and Rave Reviews. But No Studio Will Touch It.
"No Other Land" is a documentary that shows us why documentaries exist. If only Hollywood helped more people see it.
Documentaries have had a bit of mission creep lately.
Much like the news more broadly, we’re less and less certain that what we’re watching is actually reporting rather than commentary. Frontline-style documentaries where we’re given a broad overview of a topic have increasingly been replaced by visual op-eds. And it’s not hard to understand why.
It’s fun to watch Michael Moore or Matt Walsh do a televised takedown of their political opponents. But is what they do really documentary filmmaking? They’re not just pointing a camera at a story and explaining as much of it as they can; they’re propagating a worldview with quick cuts, humorous soundtracks, and fancy animations.
“No Other Land,” on the other hand, is a documentary in the purest sense — we’re given the ground-level perspective of someone who is living through one of the world’s longest conflicts.
That someone is Basel Adra, a Palestinian man who lives in the cluster of villages in the West Bank known as Masafer Yatta.
The people of Masafer Yatta can trace back their lineage in the territory two centuries. But because of gradual Israeli expansion in the West Bank, these villages have always had a target on their heads. Demolitions of Palestinian homes and infrastructure conducted by the Israeli military are common, and extremists among the nearby settler community frequently raid the villages and wreak havoc.
Adra’s response to this is to take his personal camera and record everything that’s happening. When he was a child, the village’s nonviolent protests caught the attention of British leader Tony Blair. When Blair visited the village in response, the Israelis immediately halted all the demolitions in the areas he toured.
This taught Adra’s lesson: if the village tells their story to the world, maybe they can keep their land. Unlike the violent extremists on both sides of the conflict who fight with guns and bombs, Adra’s weapon is his journalism.
He finds so much success documenting what’s happening to his village that an Israeli journalist named Yuval Abraham decides to encamp in Masafer Yatta and document what’s happening there for Israelis to see it, too.
The relationship between Abraham and Adra drives the documentary’s narrative. They come from two very separate worlds, but their shared commitment to reaching across the Israeli-Palestinian divide builds a friendship that you rarely see when it comes to an issue as polarized as the conflict in the Middle East.
The gripping footage captured by Abraham and Adra’s has received a stellar reception. The film is up for an Oscar this week in the “Best Documentary” category, and it is currently sitting at a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregator.
And yet the movie has been unable to pick up an American distributor. I saw it in Atlanta in an indie movie theater that had partnered with the producers after they decided to release it on their own dime. The screening I saw was the only screening in the entire state that day.
Why is Hollywood so afraid of picking up “No Other Land”? My guess is that the underlying subject material is so controversial that whatever studio would consider distributing the film would face a campaign of being called “anti-Israel” or “antisemitic” for putting it out there.
While nobody in the film advocates for any kind of violence — the Palestinians of Masafer Yatta are committed to Gandhian principles — the violence committed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the film is shocking and upsetting. For the people in American life who want nothing more than a simplistic story of Israelis defending themselves against terrorism, a movie about Israelis and Palestinians working together to defend an innocent village from being demolished would serve as an ontological shock to their worldview. Name-calling is often what we do when our preconcieved notions are threatened.
Which is a shame because this kind of bullying — calling everything under the sun racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. — has become all-too-common in American culture.
(And not just American culture, after the documentary won a top film award in Germany, German officials decided to call it antisemitic anyway.)
There’s a pretty good chance that “No Other Land” wins the Oscar this Sunday. If it does, we’ll see if anyone in the film industry can summon 10% of the courage shown by the people of Masafer Yatta — and the Israelis like Abraham who are willing to go there and honestly document what is happening — and finally give this movie the American release it deserves.
(Find a screening of “No Other Land” near you here or find out how you can watch it online.)
When I was in public school in the 80's we were taught that the U.S.A. and capitalism were superior to the Soviet Union and communism because we Americans could criticize our government and express ideas freely. It is ironic that now the corrupting influence of capitol has undermined a core virtue of the former Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
Regrettably, this minority does not define the majority.
The IDF does not demolish houses on a whim. Hamas did not ask those they murdered what their ideology was. For this reason alone, the minority will suffer what the majority espouses.
Vivian Silver, a lifelong advocate for peace with the Palestinians, who headed Women Wage Peace, pressured PM Netanyahu to end the Arab Israeli conflict wound up hiding from the very people she advocated for before being murdered and burned to ashes by same.
Babies placed in pre-heated ovens in front of their parents. Women viscerated of their unborn babies, breasts cut off and raped in front of their husbands, men and children sodomized before being killed. Half of over 1200 people killed THAT day were beheaded. All done with GLEE and live-streamed.
Not one Gazan has come forth to rescue a single hostage. Not the Jewish ones, or the Thai ones, or the Muslim ones. Not one Gazan. Instead, buses and trains are loaded with bombs to play out with human suicide bombers in support of the attrocities.
It’s no surprise that little empathy is left for the minority.
I haven’t watched the film, so I should ask, did the Palestinian renounce Hamas? Does he lament his neighbors setting up IED’s on local roads? Does he feel great shame for the massacre Islam perpetuates world wide on Jews, Christians and non-agreeing Muslims?
Yes? No? Doesn’t matter while the majority rule.