'There is another way': Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers win Oscar for West Bank documentary

03 Mar 2025, 11:48 by Jane Moore, https://www.thejournal.ie/author/jane-moore/ · TheJournal.ie

LAST UPDATE | 6 hrs ago

PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI filmmakers have called for “a political solution without ethnic supremacy” after their critically-acclaimed documentary about life in the West Bank won an Oscar.

No Other Land gives an account of life under occupation in the West Bank and captures the destruction of the area of Masafer Yatta and the struggles of those living there.

The film was co-directed by a group of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers – Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor.

It also picked up the Bafta for best documentary last month.

Accepting the award, Basel Adra told the crowd that he became a father two months ago.

“I hope for my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now, always feeling sometimes violence, home demolitions and for forcible displacements that my community is living and facing every day under Israeli occupation,” he said.

“No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist, as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”

Yuval Abraham said that the group made the film “because together, our voices are stronger.

“We see each other. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end. The Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of 7 October, which must be freed,” he said.

When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.

Abraham continued: “There is a different path. A political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people.”

In a reference to US President Donald Trump’s remarks about wanting to displace Palestinians from Gaza and take control of it, he said: “I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.

“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? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way.”

This morning, Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar decried the film’s award as “a sad moment for cinema”.

“Instead of presenting the complexity of our reality, the filmmakers chose to echo narratives that distort Israel’s image in the world,” Zohar said in a post on X.

“Freedom of speech is an important value, but turning the defamation of Israel into a tool for international promotion is not creation -– it’s sabotage against the State of Israel,” Zohar added.