Palestinian Documentary ‘No Other Land’ Receives Oscar Nomination

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In 2022, over a thousand residents of several Palestinian villages in the West Bank were ordered to evacuate after the Israeli military designated the area as a training zone. What followed was a heartbreaking sequence of events: bulldozers arrived, escorted by soldiers who dismissed the desperate pleas of the displaced communities. Among them was Basel Adra, a Palestinian resident who had long documented the harassment his community endured through video. This film not only captures his efforts but also spotlights his unique partnership with Israeli photojournalist Yuval Abraham, with whom he collaborated alongside Hamdan Balla and Rachel Szor to bring this powerful story to life.

The result was a brutal, pain-filled documentary. Titled No Other Land, today it is nominated for an Oscar. The film has been nominated for an Oscar for best documentary at the 97th annual Academy Awards where it will compete against 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.

If it takes home the prestigious Best Documentary Award on March 2 at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, it will be the first Palestinian film to win an Academy Award.

As of now, no Palestinian film has won an Oscar. However, a couple Palestinian films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, including Paradise Now in 2005 and Omar in 2013.

No Other Land was shortlisted for a 2025 Academy Award alongside From Ground Zero, a project, led by Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, which was shortlisted in the international feature film category.

The film 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.

During their acceptance speeches for the Berlinale Documentary Award, Abraham criticized Israel saying: “We are standing in front of you now, me and Basel are the same age. I am Israeli; Basel is Palestinian. And in two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under a civilian law and Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights. Basel is not having voting rights. I’m free to move where I want in this land. Basel is, like millions of Palestinians, locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end.”

 

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