Producers have opted to self-distribute this powerful, pointed look at Israel’s policies in seized land despite the movie earning an Oscar nomination and wins at the Berlin International Film Festival, Gotham Awards and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. “No Other Land” is, in its nature, a piece of advocacy. There are no both-sidesing explored here. The filmmakers — a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four directors — make it clear they hope documenting their plight will get the United States to pressure Israel to stop the destruction.
The documentary is largely told from the perspective of Basel Adra, an activist born in Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the southern mountains of the occupied West Bank. The Israelis have ordered Palestinians off the land to make room for a military training ground.
Shot between 2019 and 2023 — filming ended before the Israel-Hamas war exploded — the bulldozers arrive and never stop, protected by soldiers and ripping through simple concrete homes. The residents retreat to caves, albeit with high-def TV connections. Then they try to rebuild, often under the stealth of night. Then the bulldozers return.
“They destroy us slowly. Every week, a home,” goes the narration. “Every week a new family must decide: Endure, or leave their land.”
Adra and Palestinian co-writer and co-director Hamdan Ballal are joined by an Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, who arrives in Masafer Yatta with the cinematographer Rachel Szor. Abraham is asked point blank on his arrival: “What do you think about what your country is doing to us?” His answer: “I think it’s a crime.”
It is a wrenching movie
to see: Soldiers, with vague permission from a court that Palestinians
have no say in, push old women and children, not answering their pleas
to stop and merely waving away residents whose families have lived in
the region since the 1830s. The residents can’t vote and their license
plates set them apart from Israelis. They’re hoping enough likes on
social media can change their plight.... READ MORE https://apnews.com/article/no-other-land-documentary-review-c46bf4fa42f2fad4fecb16846b2c2684
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