No Other Land is an Israeli-Palestinian documentary film released in 2024, chronicling the systematic destruction of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta, an area in the West Bank, by the Israeli army. The film is a result of a combined effort of an Israeli-Palestinian collective. The two tired faces we see on the screen the most are the ones of Basel Aldra, a lawyer, journalist and activist from Masafer Yatta and of Yuval Abraham, an Israeli reporter and filmmaker. Despite their different backgrounds, they cooperate, as they both have the same goal – to stop the ongoing invasion by informing on it. On the other two imaginary director’s chairs (the only actual chairs in the film are white, plastic and dusty) sat filmmakers Hamdan Ballal from Palestine and Rachel Szor from Israel.
Why did you come here?
It is exactly this dual origin of the creators that is the biggest strength of the movie. They make sure to let the viewer know that the last thing they want is to blindly demonize the Israeli or the Palestinian people. The suave Yuval and charismatic Basel sit on the white, plastic and dusty chairs sharing a cigarette just like two Israelis or two Palestinians would. In the village below them, a bulldozer just started to demolish another building. Watching this frame serves the viewer a moral dilemma. The initial reflex of dismissing the Israeli people as brute savages is disrupted by Yuval’s reaction – he is just as distraught by the situation as Basel is. The theme of nationality versus individuality can be found all through the movie, serving as a warning against prejudice.
A story without resolution
No Other Land takes place between 2019 and 2023, offering the viewer a rather broad perspective on the conflict. The story of Masafer Yatta has the shape of a crooked dramatic arch, one that has not reached the resolution phase yet. Furthermore, if there are moments of “falling action”, they are only there to allow the action to rise and reach the climax once again. Through a collage of interviews, camera and phone shots, and archive footage of young Basel and his father, the audience is served a tale of doom and injustice, a story of a world where schools are destroyed, and people are shot.
Destruction sells
The film has been screened on a number of international festivals, collecting appraisal from both the ranks of movie critics and the general audience. Among the many accolades No Other Land has received, some of the most prominent ones are the Berlinale Documentary Film Award, the Audience Award from the Vancouver International Film Festival, the European Documentary Award from the European Film Awards and Best Documentary Award from the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The directorial collective has also been nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Film Award at the Academy Awards taking place on the 2nd of March 2025. If victorious, the film will mark the fourth Israeli and first ever Palestini Academy Award win.
Not another war documentary
Unless the viewer has lived in a pleasant but foolish oblivion for the last year and half, he is aware of the Gaza war raging in the region since the 7th of October 2023. The filming of No Other Land, however, was concluded earlier in 2023. That is why, apart from a brief explanation at the very end, the movie does not mention this chapter of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all. Adding to its uniqueness, it shows a different side of the story than the one we are used to from the news.
The tone of the movie is not set by cinematic explosions above the city skyline or startling statistics of hundreds of thousands injured and deceased. No Other Land rather eludes an atmosphere of intimacy, loss and claustrophobia. There is nothing cinematic or grand about what is happening in Masafer Yatta. The documentary conveys exactly that – a story of broken homes, desperate people and injustice that does not even try to wear a disguise. It does not have to. The truth is that the message that the documentary conveys is not as much one about social struggle or a life in a warzone. It is that not even all the accolades and recognition the movie has received changed anything. I am writing this review on the 11th of February 2025, years after the first Israeli bulldozer arrived in the region. The latest update on the destruction of Masafer Yatta was posted less than an hour ago.
- Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Balal
- Distributor: Norsk Filmdistribusjon
- Genre: Documentary
- Language: Arabic
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