It’s an impossible task to expect a documentary to solve one of the most enduring, complicated and seemingly intractable conflicts in the world. Confronting the frustration and pain of the Israeli-Palestinian situation head-on, the film “No Other Land” has become the most acclaimed documentary of the year, winning two prizes when it premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024, sweeping major critics groups and earning an Academy Award nomination.
The mere existence of the film itself — made by a collaborative effort between people on both sides of the conflict — somehow feels as if a solution rooted in understanding and common humanity is possible. The film is written, produced, edited and directed by the four-person team of Palestinians Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal and Israelis Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
Filmed over a number of years and largely completed before the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, the film captures Adra as he documents the precarious struggles of daily life in his hometown, the area of the West Bank known as Masafer Yata, where Israeli soldiers and settlers attempt to force the local people from their dwellings with bulldozers and intimidation. Abraham, an Israeli journalist, also wants to cover what is happening there and the two form a complex bond of partnership and friendship on screen and off.
The title “No Other Land” comes from the cry of an unidentified Palestinian woman who asks where else is there for them to go. When no American distributors stepped up to put out the documentary, the filmmaking team found themselves forced to release it themselves. After opening in New York and Los Angeles, “No Other Land” is beginning to play in other cities around the country as well.
Still, even seemingly simple duties of promoting their film are fraught with difficulty. When Abraham and Adra were last together in Paris, Abraham took a taxi to the airport in Jerusalem and was there within a few hours. Adra, meanwhile, had to endure countless checkpoints in making his way to the nearest airport available to him in Jordan. The overall journey took him nearly 30 hours.
The two recently got on a Zoom call — Adra, 28, from Masafer Yata and Abraham, 29, from Jerusalem — to discuss their collaboration and shared goals for the project.
“I think the film talks a lot about the differences between myself and Basel and the inequality that exists,” Abraham said. “It’s everywhere. It’s when we travel, it’s where we meet. It’s the language that we can talk in. It’s everything.”
Do you care to comment about President Trump’s recent statements that he plans for the United States to control Gaza? What is the response to that from your community?
Basel Adra: I mean, it’s insane what he’s saying. I think Trump is talking from a perspective of power — that he has the power and he can openly be talking about violating international law and ethnic cleansing to the millions of Palestinians and to occupy their land. It’s a scary situation because Trump doesn’t seem to care about the Palestinians. He has all the power in the world and he can do whatever he wants. And the Israelis will take the advantage more and more for their interests, to occupy more land and to expand settlements and outposts and to destroy more and more of the Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
Yuval Abraham: It’s quite easy to oppose what Trump is saying because he’s so blatant and openly racist and and really clear. He’s talking about displacing — ethnically cleansing — 1.8, 1.9 million people. But I think what the more liberal U.S. folks should ask themselves is not what is happening under Trump, but what has happened under Democratic administrations? [President] Biden did not use his leverage to end it, did not use his leverage to get a cease-fire deal, to release the hostages, nothing. For decades, U.S. Democrats have blocked Palestinian statehood at the U.N. Security Council, have actively conducted a foreign policy which I, as an Israeli, think has been horrendous, first and foremost, for the Palestinians.
At the end of the day, I believe if the Palestinian people are not free and secure, my people will not be secure. And Trump is signifying the most extreme position and the most extreme rhetoric, but we do not want to have a Democratic administration in four years that will just go back to this status quo, where they might be saying nice things about the political solution and democracy, but the actions, on the other hand, are taking us in the complete opposite direction. We need a change in the actions, in the foreign policy. And I know it’ll not happen under Trump, but I think the Democrats who are hopefully seeking to replace him in four years have to get a new foreign policy in order. And I think it’s really important because, because it’s quite easy to oppose Trump. It was much harder to oppose what Biden was doing. And I think that’s where much of the problem lies today in the United States.
Do the two of you feel like you’ve become diplomats and political advisors? In some ways you’re just two filmmakers who made this documentary about your experiences together, but people like me are asking you for big solutions.
Abraham: I feel it’s OK because we were activists before we made the film. And we will continue. We are very political people and we want to see a political change. So we could talk about the film and the artistic decisions that we made, but I think it makes sense, due to the urgency and the severity of the situation, that we are focused on the more political side. So I’m OK with that, actually.
Basel, do you see yourself as more of an activist or a filmmaker?
Adra: Honestly, I wish that we lived in a different situation, and I didn’t need to do any of this, including the movie or all the activism, and we’ll be busy in better things in our life and not speaking at all, not trying to explain it to the world through the movie or through other things. But unfortunately, it is what it is. And we hope it will stop. To be honest, I would speak about myself more as an activist and started this movie from a perspective of activism. And I think it’s a tool as part of our activism, because it’s not a documentary about something ended in the past. It’s something in the present and we’re trying through it to mobilize and explain, to show to the world what the reality looks like and the daily life under the occupation.
Considering the struggles you’ve had to get the movie seen here in the U.S., are the two of you surprised by the reach the film has had?
Abraham: I had a lot of belief in the film, but I was always afraid that at the end, we will release it and it’ll be seen by a few people, maybe our family, our parents and that’s it. We didn’t know exactly what to expect. And on the one hand, I’m very happy that the film has quite a high profile now and people are talking about it and writing about it. But I am a little bit disappointed about the fact that we have not managed to find a big distributor or some big streamer that will take the film and really make it accessible to U.S. audiences. Because sometimes I have this feeling that the people who really need to see the film in the United States are those who maybe have a different political opinion than me and Basel. And I think these are the people who are not necessarily the ones going to the film festivals. We want to reach those people specifically.
I am still hopeful that, despite the political situation, despite the U.S. obviously moving much further into this populist right-wing ideology, there will still be a distributor that takes on the film, which we believe is important. Obviously it’s political, the reason that it didn’t happen. And maybe the Oscars can change that. This is maybe another positive thing that could come out of the film being nominated and now having a very high profile, that we will actually manage to get it seen by millions in the U.S. and to make it accessible to anybody who wants to watch it.
When did you realize that you were going to have to just release it yourselves?
Abraham: I think we just waited for a long time because we always said after we won Berlin, we were like, OK, now we might find a big distributor. And then it didn’t happen and then we said, OK, maybe when we get another recognition and we win another award, and the film’s profile just kept getting bigger and bigger, critics began writing about it, really nice things. And then we began to find distribution all over the world, like in almost every place. But in the U.S, no. And at a certain point we just said, we can’t continue to just wait indefinitely and we decided to do it in an independent way because it’s pretty much the only way we had.
And it’s been going really well so far. Maybe I’m being too hopeful, but I think that it’s very clear that people want to see it because they’re going to the cinemas to watch it. And I’ve still not given up hope that some bigger streamer or TV network will look at that and will have the minimal amount of courage to take on a film that can spark really important conversations in the United States. And people don’t have to agree, you don’t have to like every film that you watch. Films can challenge you. Some films are escapist and you watch it and you forget about reality. But some films, like our film, takes you closer to reality. And when you look at what is happening in the occupied West Bank, it’s very hard to justify it.
Are you planning to attend the Oscars?
Abraham: Yes. We wanted to make the film to make as many people in the world aware about what is happening in Masafer Yata, to the community which is being erased. And nothing will be stronger than to say the name of the community on one of the biggest stages in the world, to enforce its existence while the Israeli military occupation is attempting for decades to erase it. We want to be there. I hope we will manage, because we are four people. It’s me and Basel, also Rachel and Hamdan — and Hamdan doesn’t have a visa. This again goes back to the question of Donald Trump and will they allow an Oscar nominee to travel, to get a visa? I don’t know what will happen. We have to see, we are very nervous about it.
Has the Academy Award nomination brought more attention to the situation in Masafer Yata?
Abraham: The Oscars are obviously very important and I’m quite shocked that we managed to go so far with a film that, five years ago, started as an idea. We edited in a cave in Masafer Yata, really with the most difficult conditions that we could have. The electricity kept cutting out every few hours and soldiers invaded Basel’s house and took cameras, and to think that this thing that we were working on for so many years is now going to be on one of the biggest stages in the world is remarkable. I guess if somebody is reading and they’re faced with an injustice and they want to tell their story, this kind of thing happened to us and now millions of people will watch the film.
Adra: The Academy Awards is a very famous ceremony. It’s great that it’ll open the eyes of more audiences around the world and in the U.S. to watch this documentary. And at the end of the day, to be honest, we want people to watch this movie, because it tells about the reality and the daily life of the Palestinians in this community. “No Other Land” is a symbol of many Palestinians’ reality and life. This can bring people to understand and to learn of what’s going on.
Abraham: I also remember that the Oscars are just one night, and that people will move on to the next film and we are going to continue the work that we are doing years into the future until there is a political solution. And so I try to keep my feet on the ground. We are going to continue, whether it’s filmmaking or journalism or activism. The Oscar is just a moment in this journey. And we will continue to do the work that we are doing.
The post The co-directors of ‘No Other Land’ on Trump’s Gaza plan, the Oscars and the fight ahead appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
