The Israeli-Palestinian film No Other Land is nominated for an Oscar for best documentary at this year’s awards, to be held March 2. It follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amid violent attacks by Jewish settlers aimed at expelling them. Since the film’s nomination was announced in January, that violence has continued, with co-director Basel Adra sharing video on social media of settlers rampaging through the village under the protection of Israeli soldiers. Adra, who joins us from London, says the goal of the documentary was not just winning awards but “to get to the people’s hearts” through film. “We want people to see the reality, to see what’s going on in my community Masafer Yatta but [also] in all the West Bank.”
No Other Land still does not have a U.S. distributor, although it is showing in select cities.
TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
We turn now to the occupied West Bank, where Israel is reportedly planning to build nearly a thousand new settler homes in the Efrat settlement near Jerusalem. The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The group Shalom Achshav, Peace Now, condemned the move, saying the Netanyahu government is trying, quote, “to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise,” unquote. This comes as Israel’s ongoing military operations in the West Bank have displaced at least 45,000 Palestinians, the most since the ’67 War.
Today, the Oscar-nominated Palestinian director Basel Adra shared video from the occupied West Bank of Israeli forces storming and demolishing four houses in Masafer Yatta.
Earlier this month, Basel Adra himself filmed armed and masked Israeli settlers attacking his community of Masafer Yatta. The settlers threw stones, smashed vehicles, slashed tires, punctured a water tank. Israeli soldiers on the scene did not intervene to halt the crimes.
Basel Adra’s Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land is about Israel’s mass expulsion of Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta. In another post last week, Basel wrote, quote, “Anyone who cared about No Other Land should care about what is actually happening on the ground: today our water tanks, 9 homes and 3 ancient caves were destroyed. Masafer Yatta is disappearing in front of my eyes. Only one name for these actions: ethnic cleansing,” he said.
In a minute, Basel Adra will join us for an update. But first, we want to play the trailer from his Oscar-nominated documentary, No Other Land.
BASEL ADRA: [translated] You think they’ll come to our home?
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 1: [translated] Is the army down there?
NEWS ANCHOR: A thousand Palestinians face one of the single biggest expulsion decisions since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] Basel, come here! Come fast!
BASEL ADRA: [translated] This is a story about power.
My name is Basel. I grew up in a small community called Masafer Yatta. I started to film when we started to end.
They have bulldozers?
I’m filming you.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I need air. Oh my God!
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 3: [translated] Don’t worry.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I don’t want them to take our home.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] You’re Basel?
BASEL ADRA: [translated] Yes.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 4: [translated] You are Palestinian?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] No, I’m Jewish.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 5: [translated] He’s a journalist.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 4: [translated] You’re Israeli?
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 5: [translated] Seriously?
BASEL ADRA: [translated] We have to raise our voices, not being silent as if — as if no human beings live here.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] What? The army is here?
BASEL ADRA: This is what’s happening in my village now. Soldiers are everywhere.
IDF SOLDIER: [translated] Who do you think you’re filming, you son of a whore?
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] It would be so nice with stability one day. Then you’ll come visit me, not always me visiting you. Right?
BASEL ADRA: [translated] Maybe. What do you think? If you were in my place, what would you do?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land, co-directed by the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and our next guest, Basel Adra, Palestinian activist and journalist who writes for +972 Magazine, his most recent piece headlined “Our film is going to the Oscars. But here in Masafer Yatta, we’re still being erased.” Basel has spent years documenting Israeli efforts to evict Palestinians living in his community, Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.
Basel, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can talk about your film and also what’s happening right now? This is not a film about history. It’s on the ground now. You recently were barricaded in your house filming what was going on, what the Israeli settlers were doing.
BASEL ADRA: Thank you for having me.
Yeah, our movie, we worked on it for the last five years. We are four people — two Israelis and two Palestinians, me, myself, Yuval and Rachel and Hamdan, who’s my friend and living in Masafer Yatta. We’re just activists and journalists. And me and my friend Hamdan spent years in the field, running after bulldozers, soldiers and settlers, and in our communities and communities around us, filming the destruction, the home destructions, the school destructions, the cutting of our water pipes and the bulldozing of our roads and our own schools, and trying to raise awareness from the international community on what’s going on, to get political impact to try to stop this from happening and to protect our community.
And five years ago, Yuval and Rachel joined, as Israeli journalists, to write about what’s happening. And then we decided together that we will start working on No Other Land as a documentary that showed the whole political story through personal, individual stories of people who lost their life and homes and school and properties on this, like in the last years and also in the decades of the occupation. We released the movie in the Berlinale 2024, last year, the festival. And so far, we’ve been, like, doing in — and screened and showed, like, in many festivals around the world.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Basel, your film has received an Oscar nomination, but you haven’t been able to find a distributor in the U.S. What do you know about this refusal of any company to pick up your film to distribute it? And also, can it be seen in the West Bank or in Israel itself?
BASEL ADRA: I mean, it’s sad that we don’t find a U.S. distributor. Our goal from making this documentary, it’s not the award. It’s not the awards itself, but the people and the audience and to get to the people’s hearts, because we want people to see the reality, to see what’s going on in my community, Masafer Yatta, but in all the West Bank, to the Palestinians and how the life, the daily life under this brutal occupation, people should be aware of this, because they are — somehow, they have a responsibility. In the U.S., it’s the tax money that the people are paying there. It have something to do with the home destruction that we are facing, the settlers’ violence, the building of the settlements on our land that does not stop every day.
And we, as a collective, made this movie. We faced so many risks on the field, on the ground. Like, my home was invaded, and the cameras were confiscated from my home by Israeli soldiers. And I was physically attacked on the field when I’m going around and filming these crimes, I mean, to show to the people and to let the people know about what’s going on.
But it’s sad that the distributors in the U.S. so far do not want to take a little bit of risk, political risk, and to show this documentary to the audience. I am really sad about it, that there is no big distributors taking No Other Land and showing it to the American people. It’s very important to reach to the Americans, I believe. And so far, we are doing it independently on the cinemas.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your co-director is Israeli. Have you come under criticism for working with Israelis on the film?
BASEL ADRA: So far, I’m not receiving any criticism for working with Israelis. Like, working together is because we share in somehow the same values, that we reject the injustice and the occupation and the apartheid and what’s going on, and we want to work pro-solution and pro-justice and to end these, like, settlements and for a better future.
AMY GOODMAN: Basel, the Oscars are soon, in a few weeks. Can you get a visa to come into the United States? Will you attend the Oscars?
BASEL ADRA: So, I have visa so far, because I’ve been in the U.S. participating in festivals for our movie. But my family and the other Palestinian co-director does not have yet, and they will try to apply soon. And hopefully, they will get it, and they will be able to join us in the Oscar.
AMY GOODMAN: So, since it’s so difficult to see your film here in the United States, I want to go to another clip of No Other Land. Again, this is our guest, Basel Adra, and his co-director, Yuval Abraham, filming the eviction of a Palestinian family.
BASEL ADRA: [translated] A lot of army is here.
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] They plan a big demolition?
BASEL ADRA: [translated] We don’t know. They’re driving towards one of my neighbors.
Now the soldiers arrived here.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 1: [translated] Aren’t you ashamed to do this? Aren’t you afraid of God?
ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Go back! Move back now! Get back! I’ll push you all the way back!
YUVAL ABRAHAM: [translated] I speak Hebrew. Don’t shout.
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 2: [translated] I hope that bulldozer falls on your head. Why are you taking our homes?
MASAFER YATTA RESIDENT 3: [translated] Why destroy the bathroom?
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Israeli bulldozers destroying a bathroom. This is another clip from No Other Land, in which you, Basel, are attacked by Israeli forces even as you try to show them you have media credentials.
BASEL ADRA: [translated] I’m filming you. I’m filming you! You’re just like criminals.
ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] If he gets closer, arrest him.
BASEL ADRA: [translated] You’re expelling us. Arrest me! On what grounds?
ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Grab him.
BASEL ADRA: [translated] On what grounds? I have a journalist card. I have a journalist card!
ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Shut up!
BASEL’S FATHER: [translated] Don’t hit my son! Leave our village! Go away! Leave, you [bleep]! Shoot.
ISRAELI SOLDIER: [translated] Move back.
BASEL’S FATHER: [translated] Shoot me. Shoot me. Shoot me.
BASEL’S MOTHER: [translated] Get an ambulance!
BASEL’S FATHER: [translated] Run, Basel! Run! Get up, son. Run! Run, Basel!
AMY GOODMAN: Basel, that is you. Your mother is hanging onto you as you’re being dragged, your father. What do you want the world to know about Masafer Yatta, about your community in this film?
BASEL ADRA: I want the world to really act seriously. The international community should take measures and act seriously to end this, like, demolitions and ethnic cleansing that is happening everywhere in Gaza, in the West Bank, through different policies and different, like, reasons that the Israelis try to separate out, which is all lies. It’s all about land, that they want to steal more and more of our land. That’s very clear on the ground, because every Palestinian community being erased, there is settlements growing in the same place. This is happening right there, in the South Hebron Hills, in everywhere around the West Bank, in Area C. And now they are entering camps, since January until now, by demolishing, like, destroying the camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas, and forcing people to leave their homes, to get away.
And the world just keeps watching and not taking serious actions. And the opposite, actually. The Israelis kept receive all. Like, this amount of violations of the international law, the human rights laws, it’s very clear that it’s violated every day by the Israelis. But nobody almost cares. The opposite, they kept receiving weapons and money and relationships and —
AMY GOODMAN: Basel —
BASEL ADRA: — and diplomatic covers. Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. I thank you so much, look forward to interviewing you and Yuval in the United States. Basel Adra, co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land.
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