The 2025 Academy Award winners were revealed during a star-studded ceremony at the Dolby Theater on Hollywood on March 2, and amongst the standout winners was No Other Land, a pain-filled documentary that highlights the brutal occupation of the Palestinian people pre-October 7.
The film, a collaborative effort between Basel Adra alongside an Israeli collective, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Balla, and Rachel Szor, took home the Best Documentary at the 97th annual Academy Awards. It beat out Shiori Itō’s Black Box Diaries; The Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev-directed Porcelain War; Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, directed by Johan Grimonpre; and Sugarcane directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie to become the first-ever Palestinian film to win an Oscar.
This win marks a significant recognition for Palestinian cinema on the international stage, especially considering the challenging conditions these films were crafted under. The Oscar win, achieved amid the complexities of genocide, is a reminder that even voices from the most embattled regions can find resonance on one of the most celebrated cinematic platforms in the world.
No Other Land premiered on Feb. 16, 2024 at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival in Panorama, where it scooped up the Berlinale Documentary Award and the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film. The documentary is about the systemic destruction of Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Occupied West Bank, largely told through the perspective of Adra, a Palestinian resident who had long documented the harassment his community endured through video.
During his acceptance speech at the Oscars, Adra made a plea saying: “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” he said. “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 am living now.”
Co-director Abraham added: “Why can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?”
Main image: Instagram/@brianformo
