Why is America afraid of ‘No Other Land’?
A scene from ‘No Other Land’
Ahmed Twaij writes in Al Jazeera on 5 March 2025:
On Sunday, the Israeli-Palestinian co-production ‘No Other Land’ was awarded an Academy Award for best documentary. The Oscar – a first for Palestine – has now been added to the list of 45 awards that the film has won since its release in 2024, including best documentary in the 2024 European Film Awards, the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival, and the 2024 Gotham Awards.
The feature has received widespread critical acclaim and glowing five-star reviews in international media. It has been screened around the world and has consistently sold out in independent screenings in the United States. And yet, no US distributor would pick it up to show it nationwide. The only reason for that is its subject matter: Palestine.
The documentary follows the lives of Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta, an area near Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank, which the Israeli army has declared a “military zone”. Under this pretext, Israeli troops and illegal settlers regularly harass its residents and destroy their houses, rendering them homeless. The story is told through the lens of co-directors Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist.
This raw, harrowing depiction of Israel’s ongoing crimes is something distributors are clearly afraid of showing. And this is in a country that prides itself on its constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech.