The Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” follows the displacement of rural Palestinian communities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The film, made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, illustrates the villages cleared to create space for a tank training ground for the Israeli military. “No Other Land” won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature on Sunday night.
???????? Brazil takes home Best International Feature Film for I'M STILL HERE with Walter Salles flashing a smile at the 97th #Oscars.
Photo Credit: Matt Sayles pic.twitter.com/GlqncNzc3Z
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 3, 2025
In their acceptance speech, the film’s directors called on the world to end what they described as the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Basel Adra, a Palestinian journalist and one of the film’s four co-directors, spoke about his hope for his newborn daughter. My hope for my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing settlers, violence, home demolitions, and forcible displacements,” he said. Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist and “No Other Land” co-director, emphasized the importance of Palestinian and Israeli voices coming together.
Three Oscars. What about four? Or five? #Oscars
Congratulations to ANORA, this year's Best Picture winner! pic.twitter.com/Nt3Q2Ta405
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 3, 2025
“We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis because together, our voices are stronger,” he said. Abraham highlighted the inequality between himself and Adra, saying, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal.
NO OTHER LAND wins the #Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film.
Made by Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham, a collective of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, the film had its Canadian Premiere at #TIFF24. pic.twitter.com/302Q8KiK9X
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) March 3, 2025
The documentary highlights Palestinian-Israeli collaboration
We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, while Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.”
He called for a “political solution” that would ensure national rights for both Israelis and Palestinians, accusing the United States of “helping to block this path.”
In an interview last year, Adra expressed uncertainty about the power of the camera after witnessing violence in Gaza. “I always thought that when people would see what’s happening in the videos that we — I risk my life and other Palestinians risk their lives to film — it would change something,” he said. Despite being the year’s highest-grossing Oscar-nominated documentary, “No Other Land” remains without an official U.S. distributor.
The film’s politics have deterred distributors, making it nearly impossible for American filmgoers to see it in theaters or stream it. The selection of “No Other Land” for Best Documentary Feature represented a landmark moment and a rebuke. The film entered a perennially supercharged political climate at an especially sensitive moment, debuting within months of Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s response in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
The politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are especially prominent in Hollywood. Last year, entertainment executive Ari Emanuel, who is Jewish, made headlines for his criticisms of Israel’s conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while accepting an award from a major Jewish group in Los Angeles.
