Written and Directed by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor | 92 min | ▲▲▲▲1/2
It’s rare that I’ll review a film that isn’t readily available on some platform for readers to find and experience. either in cinemas or online. In North America this documentary, despite a stellar festival run and being on the shortlist for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, is at the time of this writing still without a distributor.
Over the holidays I travelled to London, and found it screening at the Bertha DocHouse in Bloomsbury, a screen at the Curzon Cinema dedicated to documentaries. No Other Land will break your heart, but it’s a fascinating work that looks to share the effect of the State of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the destruction of homes on land belonging to Palestinians. It’s personal, as told through the experiences of the people living in a village, Masafer Yatta, on the southern edge of the Occupied Territories.
When the Israelis come in with the army, trucks, and bulldozers, they choose different homes every time. Basel and his colleagues film the destruction of the homes and the interactions between the soldiers and the locals. These are people living in relative poverty, all they have to call their own is their land, which they have lived on for generations. We see how this policy of destruction — the army says it needs to clear the land for a military training zone — has both a physical and psychological impact on all the people living there.
These villagers are not radicals or extremists. They’re just people looking to live their lives in a remote place who on the regular are victims to power beyond their control.
No Other Land also tells the story of the friendship between Masafer Yatta resident and activist, Basel, and an Israeli journalist, Yuval, both credited as filmmakers on this project.
Yuval lives in Be’er Sheva, a town outside the West Bank — he can come and go. He’s writing about what’s happening with these demolitions and wants to get the story from the locals. He befriends Basel and his family. He’s challenged from time to time by the people of Masafer Yatta because his relatives could be with the army, displacing and injuring the people living here. Mostly it seems they recognize he wants to help, but they just want to debate him where their concerns aren’t getting much traction elsewhere. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled the army can clear the area as they see fit.
Some of the most affecting moments in the film are conversations between Yuval and Basel as they discuss their mission to bring attention to what’s happening, but also their shared dreams of a future without antipathy between their peoples, and whether either of them get to have families, get to feel safe and happy.
This feels like a documentary that could actually bring change. I can’t imagine anyone watching it and not finding empathy for a group of people who have so little power being on the receiving end of so much aggression. I hope people in North America get to see it soon.
