Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers create 'No Other Land'

January 31, 2025
Heard on Fresh Air

"…The film No Other Land has won numerous prizes at international festivals and it received an Oscar nomination for best documentary feature…

"It was directed by a team consisting of two Palestinian filmmakers, Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, and two Israeli filmmakers, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. During the production, Basel, an activist and journalist who grew up in Masafer Yatta, became good friends with Yuval, a Jerusalem-based journalist. Their relationship provides the movie's dramatic core…

"In the footage shot by Basel and his colleagues… we see Palestinian families frantically evacuating mere minutes before their homes are destroyed, then moving their possessions into nearby caves. We see farm animals wandering in confusion from their demolished coops and pens, and children playing amid the ruins, as children in war zones often do…

"There's a power differential, of course, between Basel and Yuval. When No Other Land won two awards last February at the Berlin International Film Festival, the filmmakers took the stage together, and Yuval said, in his acceptance speech: ‘In two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal’ — and he added that this inequality has to end… 

"As an example of Palestinian-Israeli collaboration in action, Basel and Yuval and the vital movie they've made give us reason to hope."

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