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| Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor: No Other Land (Palestine/NO 2024). In the photo: Basel Adra puts his life in danger documenting feral settler violence, all recorded by Rachel Szor. |
Viewed at Le Pierre, Telluride Film Festival (TFF), 1 Sep 2024
In person: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Mark Danner (TFF 2024): "Since last October, as all eyes have focused on the ongoing carnage in Gaza, the quiet war in the West Bank has continued. This is a war intended to push Palestinians off their land. Home demolitions, settler attacks, arrests: since October 2023, more than 600 Palestinians have died in violence in the West Bank. NO OTHER LAND intimately records this quiet war. A young Palestinian filmmaker, Basel Adra, and a young Israeli reporter, Yuval Abraham, along with codirectors Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, captured the story of the villages of Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank, as the Israeli army exerts growing pressure to push the Palestinians from their land. We see homes demolished—one family moves its tiny heap of belongings into a nearby cave—a young Palestinian shot and paralyzed. The filmmakers have crafted a matchless, intimate portrait of the day-in, day-out cruelty of a military occupation that has lasted more than half a century." –Mark Danner (Palestine-Norway, 2024, 95 min)
Premise from Wikipedia: "A young Palestinian activist named Basel Adra has been resisting the forced displacement of his people by Israel's military in Masafer Yatta, a region in the West Bank, since he was a child. He records the gradual destruction of his homeland, where Israeli soldiers are tearing down homes and evicting their inhabitants. He befriends Yuval, an Israeli journalist who helps him in his struggle. They form an unexpected bond, but their friendship is challenged by the huge gap between their living conditions: Basel faces constant oppression and violence, while Yuval enjoys freedom and security."
Yuval Abraham in Variety: "Basal’s family and neighbors had a huge archive of videos that were filmed over the course of 20 years. And then we as activists, we were there on the ground together, working together for almost five years, and we filmed a lot. We had Rachel, the cinematographer and co-director of the film, who was shooting us. So there was an abundance of footage. The military entered Basal’s home twice and confiscated computers and cameras. So we were always very, very stressed. It was complicated logistically and quite stressful, but in the end we managed."
AA: No Other Land is one of the greatest films of the year 2024.
This devastating account of war and occupation in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank is a collaboration between two Arab and two Jewish film-makers, the directors-screenwriters-editors Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor.
Although No Other Land has been filmed in almost impossible circumstances, under constant mortal threat from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and brutal settler violence, the result is eloquent and convincing. The footage has been caught in hectic situations, in the heat of the moment, but the film is coherent and controlled.
The cellphone footage of the present is deftly linked with the historical video archive kept by Basal's family and neighbours over 20 years. The IDF and the murderous settlers threaten to destroy both the journalists and the family archive, but they fail. Instead, No Other Land and the footage from which it derives turn into evidence for international courts on war crimes, crimes against humanity and first degree murders of innocent demonstrators and other civilians.
The razing of a children's playground, the destruction of a school, the eviction of a family from land they have cultivated for 120 years, their turning into cave-dwellers, and a Bazinian plan-séquence of a settler killing an old unarmed farmer point blank belong to the unforgettable views.
No Other Land emerges also as a document of a Wile E. Coyote moment in the history of West Bank occupation violence. "With their strength they fail", states an old Arab farmer.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM WIKIPEDIA:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM WIKIPEDIA:
No Other Land
Directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Written by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Produced by Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning
Cinematography Rachel Szor
Edited by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Music by Julius Pollux Rothlaender
Production companies: Yabayay Media, Antipode Films
Release date: 17 February 2024 (Berlinale)
95 minutes
Countries: Palestine, Norway
LanguageS: Arabic, Hebrew, English
No Other Land is a 2024 documentary film directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor in their directorial debut. The film was made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four activists as an act of resistance on the path to justice during the ongoing conflict in the region.
A co-production between Palestine and Norway, the film was selected for the Panorama section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 16 February 2024, winning the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film, and the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.
Premise
A young Palestinian activist named Basel Adra has been resisting the forced displacement of his people by Israel's military in Masafer Yatta, a region in the West Bank, since he was a child. He records the gradual destruction of his homeland, where Israeli soldiers are tearing down homes and evicting their inhabitants. He befriends Yuval, an Israeli journalist who helps him in his struggle. They form an unexpected bond, but their friendship is challenged by the huge gap between their living conditions: Basel faces constant oppression and violence, while Yuval enjoys freedom and security.
Production
In an interview at the Berlinale, Adra and Abraham spoke with Variety about the film.
Basel Adra spoke about development of the film. He said, "Yuval and Rachel, who are Israelis, came five years ago to write about things — Yuval is journalist — we met and we became friends but also activists together, working on articles about the area." He further said, "And then we got the idea of doing this, of creating this movie."
About filming Abraham said:
Basal’s family and neighbors had a huge archive of videos that were filmed over the course of 20 years. And then we as activists, we were there on the ground together, working together for almost five years, and we filmed a lot. We had Rachel, the cinematographer and co-director of the film, who was shooting us. So there was an abundance of footage. The military entered Basal’s home twice and confiscated computers and cameras. So we were always very, very stressed. It was complicated logistically and quite stressful, but in the end we managed.
The documentary was filmed over four years between 2019 and 2023, wrapping production in October 2023.
Release
No Other Land had its world premiere on 16 February 2024, as part of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, in Panorama.
The film had its international premiere at Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival on 15 March 2024, in the section "Urgent Matters" and the "Conflicted" theme. It featured in the "Popular Front(s)" in the 46th Cinéma du Réel Festival that took place from 22 to March 31, 2024 in Paris.
The film was also presented in the International Documentaries section of the 71st Sydney Film Festival on June 13, 2024. It was also screened in 'Horizons' at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 28 June 2024.
It was selected in TIFF Docs at 2024 Toronto International Film Festival which will be held from September 5 to 15, 2024. It will be screened in 'Showcase' at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival on 28 September 2024.
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.
Adra, in his acceptance speech, said:
It’s our first movie since many years my community, my family has been filming our community being erased by this brutal occupation. I am here celebrating the award, but also very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza. Masafer Yatta, my community, is being also razed by Israeli bulldozers. I ask one thing: for Germany, as I am in Berlin here, to respect the U.N. calls and stop sending weapons to Israel.
The Berlinale also featured other numerous pro-Palestine protests during the acceptance speeches and red carpet — including from Golden Bear winner Mati Diop. Following the closing ceremony on 25 February 2024, an Instagram account linked to the Panorama section published an allegedly official statement from the Festival organizers, demanding German authorities to withdraw its arms supplies to Israel. Shortly afterwards, the Berlinale's main Instagram account stated that the Panorama account had been hacked, and announced plans to “file criminal charges against unknown persons”. Berlin Mayor, Kai Wegner, and numerous others German politicians expressed outrage, calling the speeches "anti-semitic", with Wegner stating on Twitter that "Berlin is firmly on Israel’s side." Even though the Festival is mainly funded by the German government, the organizers affirmed the "filmmakers' statements were independent and should be accepted as long as they respect the legal framework".
Abraham said to The Guardian, "To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire – and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger," and reported that his family in Israel had evacuated their home after "a right-wing Israeli mob" came in search of him. He was also concerned for the safety of Adra, who had since returned to the West Bank.
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