Palestinian films win global acclaim. So why can’t you watch most of them?
Scene from ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab,’
Sheren Falah Saab writes in Haaretz on 27 January 2026:
The applause goes on for minutes. There’s a long standing ovation, cameras are pulled out, film reviewers hasten to publish superlatives. At the major film festivals in Venice, Cannes and Toronto, Palestinian films are arousing a lively discussion, receiving unusual attention and receiving prizes.
They’re demonstrating their presence even at the Oscars. On the list of nominees for Best International Film you can find “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” by Kaouther Ben Hania, based on the story of the Palestinian child who was killed by IDF fire in Gaza. It was submitted to the competition to represent Tunisia.
Two other films reached the long-list for the prize: “Palestine 36” by Annemarie Jacir, which takes place during the major Arab revolt against the British Mandate government, represents the Palestinian Authority’s submission; and “All That’s Left of You” by Palestinian-American director Cherien Dabis, which follows a Palestinian mother who retells the story of her family over three generations, from the Nakba in 1948 to the present, is representing Jordan.
But along with the great interest and the considerable prominence at festivals, Palestinian films are encountering significant obstacles on the Hollywood distribution scene. The Los Angeles Times reported that the three films mentioned here were purchased for distribution in the United States by small companies with limited exposure capability: “The Voice of Hind Rajab” by Willa Distribution, “Palestine 36” and “All That’s Left of You” by Watermelon Pictures. That means a small number of screenings and a limited audience.
Ben Hania confirms that this is a familiar pattern. Films about Palestine have difficulty difficult reaching the general public in the United States. “When you make a film, you want everyone to see it, especially a film like this,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s very frustrating, but I can’t put a gun to the distributor’s head. There are quite a few obstacles in film production, and that’s one of them.”
Scene from the film ‘Palestine 36’
In a conversation with Haaretz, a Palestinian director claimed that ‘It’s true that the distribution problems are making more headlines today, but this scene has never been neutral. A Palestinian film always fights to reach center stage.’
“All That’s Left of You,” which won the Public Prize at the Leiden International Film Festival and Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Malaysia International Film Festival, was left for months without an American distributor.
In an interview with Al Jazeera in November 2025, the director Dabis said: “There are people in Hollywood who are beginning to wake up and understand a point of view they were unfamiliar with, but in the same breath, Palestinian cinema is still excluded from the system. Our films aren’t being acquired by major streaming platforms, and the big distributors reject them. They’re the gatekeepers – the ones who decide whether a film will reach the general public or will be stopped.”
The situation is even more complicated in the case of “Palestine 36,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival gala presentation in September and received a 20-minute standing ovation. A post on the film’s Instagram page said that the film fell victim to an organized smear campaign, which included pirated leaks, misleading ratings and offensive comments, with the aim of undermining demand for the film and sabotaging its distribution. “Piracy is not ‘viewing,'” the January 7 post reads. “It is direct harm that impacts the continuity of screenings, the film’s chances of wider release and distribution, and the future of Palestinian films reaching the big screen.”
What the three films have in common is a multinational production structure, in which the funding is divided among investors from several countries. “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” for example, is a co-production of Tunisia, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, and its producers include Hollywood stars such as Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara. But the big names and the international response weren’t translated into distribution. This disparity isn’t coincidental, and it points to mechanisms operating below the surface and affecting Palestinian cinema.
It should be noted that requests by Haaretz to members of the Palestinian cinema industry to be interviewed for the article were greeted by a firm and consistent refusal. Actors and directors explained that they aren’t willing to be interviewed by an Israeli media outlet or aren’t interested in “any connection with Israel.” A Palestinian director who at first agreed to be interviewed later changed his mind. “I’m sorry, and I’m not interested in taking part in an article due to your newspaper’s views,” he explained in an email he sent. A Palestinian film scholar wrote: “I feel that I have nothing I want to tell you, considering the huge majority of Jews who support genocide, not only in Israel but abroad as well.” Two interviewees who agreed to talk off the record did so only thanks to personal acquaintance.
The difficult of speaking to Palestinian artists and quoting their words on their behalf – whether they live abroad, in the West Bank or in Israel – is a painful experience. Some expressed a fear that an interview would be seen as collaboration with Israel. There’s irony in the fact that on the one hand, political entities in Israel are trying to crush any discussion of the Palestinian narrative; on the other hand, the international boycott isn’t limited to cultural output from Israel, and imposes censorship on Palestinian artists as well.
Hollywood is divided
There’s one thing on which everyone agrees: There’s a real difficulty in obtaining distribution for Palestinian films through major companies. “There was a different expectation. After the reverberation, the positive reviews and the extensive coverage, Hollywood’s door remains closed to us as Palestinians,” says a Palestinian artist and actor.
An article published in September by NBC News – titled “Standing ovations but no distribution: Films about Palestinians meet a divided Hollywood” – noted that “Despite interest at the start of filming, and in some cases A-list backers, none of these films have secured a deal with a major studio or streamer, which is uncommon when a title receives buzz overseas.” The article cited examples of foreign films that dealt with other fraught historical conflicts elsewhere, and nevertheless succeeded in finding major distributors.
In a conversation with Haaretz, a Palestinian director claimed that “It’s true that the distribution problems are making more headlines today, but this scene has never been neutral. A Palestinian film always fights to reach center stage.” He admits that there’s a fear that the present interest in Palestinian films is only temporary. “Being pro-Palestinian has become a trend. Hollywood woke up late, the war began in 2023, and only recently are voices against the war beginning to be heard there. In my opinion, it’s too late.”
Until October 7, Palestinian cinema was present at international festivals but remained on the fringes of the Oscar scene. Films such as Maha Haj’s “Mediterranean Fever” (2022); “Gaza mon amour” by brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser (2020); “Wajib” by Annemarie Jacir (2017); and “The Idol” by Hany Abu-Assad (2015) aroused interest and received compliments, but weren’t nominated. There’s no doubt that the war in Gaza changed the picture: the demonstrations in the streets, the violent events on university campuses and the heated discussions on social media led to a significant increase in the attention given to Palestinian films.
In 2024, “From Ground Zero,” which represented France, entered the long list of Oscar nominees for Best International Film, but wasn’t included on the short list. The film, which was created in Gaza during the war, combines 22 short films by Palestinian directors that bring a personal perspective of life under bombardment, displacement and death. It was screened at the festivals in Cannes and Toronto and enjoyed media exposure, but even in this case, the film failed to receive broad commercial distribution.
It was distributed by Watermelon Pictures, a company explicitly committed to producing, funding and distribution Palestinian films. The company was established in April 2024 by two Palestinian Americans, the brothers Badie and Hamza Ali. Its main goal is to present Palestinian and Arab cinema, populations that the founders say receive sparse representation in the main Western media and sometimes even dehumanization. The company focuses on promoting the works and making them available to the festival and international distribution markets.
Despite its support, the revenues of “From Ground Zero” totaled only about $400,000, according to The Numbers website. On the other hand, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” took in $4.5 million worldwide, “All That’s Left of You” had revenues of about half a million dollars, and “Palestine 36” had to make do with about $100,000, according to IMDB.
In October, the Hollywood news site The Deadline examined why films dealing with the Palestinian issue don’t become a commercial success, by using the case of “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” “Buyers are passing out of fear and/or they disagree with the film’s politics,” said leading U.S. buyer. Another added that for an American distributor, purchasing such a film isn’t only a matter of expressing confidence in its quality, but also requires the investment of resources in defending it from anticipated attacks.
“You cannot tell a story right now of anything post-October 7 without contextualizing October 7. You can’t skip it or minimize it, because it’s not a small part of the context,” a Hollywood producer told Deadline anonymously. Even “No Other Land” by Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2024, had difficulty finding a distributor in the United States.
In March the film was also at the center of a political attack, when Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner threatened to withhold municipal funding from the local cinematheque after its screening, claiming that it was “one-sided false propaganda against the Jewish people,” a statement he retracted following the threat after protests and condemnations from both artists and civil rights organizations.
Unique status
Looking back at prior cinematic representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it becomes clear that from an early stage, a gap emerged between the prominent presence of Palestinian films at festivals around the world and the ability to translate this recognition into commercial distribution. “Palestinian cinema began to be established in the early 1970s, first under the Fatah movement and later under the organizing framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization,” explains Iddo Better Pocker, a doctoral student who is researching the audiovisual history of the conflict at Tel Aviv University.
He says that the Palestinian films from that period relied on abstract aesthetics and experimental language, and were influenced by the Third Cinema movement of the 1960s, which advocated the creation of militant cinema mobilized for anti-colonial liberation processes. As a result, he says, “Their commercial potential was limited, and they received recognition mainly among intellectual circles and students in Western Europe and North America.”
Since the mid-70s there have also been attempts to appeal to broader audiences. Better Pocker mentions “Kafr Qasem,” a feature film from Lebanese director Borhane Alaouie that was produced in Syria, about the synonymous massacre perpetrated by Israel’s Border Police in 1956. The PLO sponsored the film and distributed it worldwide. “It was screened at the Cannes festival in 1975, although not in the official competition. But it was a great successes there, and was later shown comer in commercial screenings, which troubled the Israeli Foreign Ministry,” says Better Pocker.
The obstacles faced Palestinian cinema went beyond questions of quality or economic feasibility, and emphasized the way in which the question of Palestine is received (or rejected) in the cultural sphere. In 2002 the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences refused to accept Elia Suleiman’s film “Divine Intervention” as a nominee in the foreign film category, claiming that Palestine is not a state recognized by the United Nations. The decision was made despite the film’s success at international festivals and its winning of the Jury Prize in Cannes. The decision was sharply criticized at the time, with many claiming that the Academy’s regulation was outdated and translated into political exclusion.
“Paradise Now” by Palestinian-Dutch director Hany Abu-Assad won the 2006 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and was also an Oscar nominee. The State of Israel and American Jewish organizations exerted pressure not to present the film as coming from the State of Palestine, arguing that it should instead be attributed to the Palestinian Authority. The controversy, which focused on the film’s national definition, illustrated the extent to which the representation of Palestinian cinema in the Hollywood arena is inherently entwined with political struggles.
Prof. Raya Morag, a researcher of cinema studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says that Palestinian cinema is a special case because of its unique status as “transnational” – crossing state borders. “Palestinian cinema is made in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, the Arab world, Europe and the United States. Alongside this fragmentation, it does depend on the memory of territory,” she says. “Because it has no single place – in terms of industry, production, distribution and audience – it essentially embodies the tragedy of the Palestinian people.”
Morag points to additional barriers within the field itself. “When talking about the ‘founding generation’ of Palestinian filmmakers like Elia Suleiman and Hany Abu-Assad, who paved the way for the global acceptance of Palestinian cinema, their tracks did not necessarily allow the next generation to follow in their footsteps. There is a predicament. Not only is the national situation paradoxical, but the contexts of production, distribution and audience building are also paradoxical.”
For comparison, she cites “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” a film by Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who was forced to flee his country and was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison after authorities in Tehran demanded he cancel the screening at Cannes. “That film is identified with one context and one place. The complexity of Palestinian cinema lies in the fact that it doesn’t even have that foothold. It’s not just a matter of territory; the entire structure does not allow for consistent and continuous support for a fragmented industry.”
Due to the exceptional conditions under which Palestinian cinema is created and managed, it seems that accepted metrics such as box office sales and wide commercial distribution cannot serve as the sole benchmark for success. Sometimes, the mere existence of the films is an achievement in itself. As Morag puts it, “Palestinian cinema is in a constant struggle, both for self-definition and for the very act of filmmaking. When you don’t have an audience at home, how can you have an audience abroad? On the other hand, it’s a literal miracle that there is Palestinian cinema at all, under all the pressures and paradoxes.”
A Palestinian actor who spoke with Haaretz concluded: “For me, this is only the beginning of the road. Every such film is another step in the struggle for our voice and our place in the world. As Palestinian creators, directors and actors, we still have a long way to go.”
This article is reproduced in its entirety