‘No Other Land,’ about Israel razing Palestinian village, wins best documentary Oscar
Two of film’s four co-directors, an Israeli and a Palestinian, use acceptance speeches to call for Palestinian rights; Israeli Yuval Avraham also calls for release of hostages
JTA — “No Other Land,” which chronicles Israel’s demolitions in the Palestinian West Bank village of Masafer Yatta, won the Academy Award for best documentary feature on Sunday night.
Taking the stage at the Oscars in Los Angeles, two of the film’s four co-directors — an Israeli and a Palestinian — used their acceptance speeches to call for Palestinian rights and a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s culture minister bemoaned the win as a “sad moment.”
“About two months ago I became a father, and my hope to my daughter: that she will not have to live the same life I am living now,” said Basel Adra, a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank, in his speech. “Always feeling settler violence, home demolitions and forceful displacement that my community, Masafer Yatta, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation.”
He added: “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”
His co-director, left-wing Israeli Yuval Avraham, spoke in his speech of the “atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of October 7, which must be freed.”
He also criticized Israel’s “unequal” treatment of West Bank Palestinians and said US policy in the region was playing a negative role.
“There is a different path, a political solution, without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people,” he said. “And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”
Watch the speeches @basel_adra and @yuval_abraham gave after winning the Oscar tonight for their movie "No other land" pic.twitter.com/KBC4khKFKL
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) March 3, 2025
Also winning the Oscar were Israeli Rachel Szor and Palestinian Hamdan Ballal.
In Israel, Culture Minister Miki Zohar slammed the accolades given the film, claiming it was part of a campaign to “sabotage” Israel.
“The Oscar win for the film ‘No Other Country’ is a sad moment for the world of cinema – instead of presenting the complexity of our reality, the filmmakers chose to echo narratives that distort Israel’s image in the world,” Zohar wrote on X. “Freedom of expression is an important value, but turning the slander of Israel into a tool for international promotion is not creativity – it is sabotage of the State of Israel.”
He also called for legislation to cut state funding for movies or other creative works that are critical of the country or its policies, saying public resources should be “directed to works that speak to the Israeli audience, and not to an industry that makes a career out of defaming the country at foreign festivals.”
The Oscar win is especially significant as “No Other Land” has not yet gotten a US distributor despite being touted by film critics.
This Academy Awards, the second since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught and the subsequent outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, is also the second straight ceremony to feature a speech about Israel.
Last year, in his acceptance speech for the Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest,” writer-director Jonathan Glazer prompted controversy when he said: “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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