IMS Supported No Other Land wins Oscar for best documentary

Bonn, March 06 (IMS/OurVoice): Congratulations to the team behind No Other Land, Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham. International Media Support (IMS) supported the film in an early phase of its production.
In a press alert, IMS added, the film No Other Land won the Oscar for best documentary feature film at Sunday’s ceremony. The film depicts the unique friendship between a Palestinian activist and an Israeli journalist as they work together to document how the Israeli military and Israeli settlers displace Palestinians from their villages in the occupied West Bank.
Rasmus Steen, head of IMS Documentary Film, saw early on that No Other Land had potential to tell a relevant story in a different way. IMS provided funding for the film and has closely followed its progress since then.
Accepting the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday night, two filmmakers behind “No Other Land,” which chronicles Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the southern West Bank, called on the world to work to help halt the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, free the remaining Israeli hostages captured in “the crime of Oct. 7” and chart a more equitable path forward for Palestinians.
“When I look at Basel, I see my brother,” said Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist and one of the filmmakers, referring to his fellow director, the Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who had just spoken. “But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws, that destroy lives, that he cannot control.”
Adra said that their film “reflects the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades and still resist, as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”
The selection of “No Other Land” for best documentary feature represented a landmark and a rebuke. Despite a string of honors and rave reviews, no distributor would pick up this film in the United States, making it nearly impossible for American filmgoers to see it in theaters or to stream it.
At this year’s ceremony, the speeches by Adra and Abraham, who were joined onstage by their two other directors, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, were greeted with applause. The Australian actor Guy Pearce, a best supporting actor nominee who wore a “Free Palestine” lapel pin on the Oscars red carpet, could be seen on television encouraging the filmmakers on as they passed him on their way to the stage.
During his acceptance speech, Abraham seemed aware of the prominent stage he had. Calling for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that provides national rights for both peoples, he said, “I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.”
Abraham also seemed to allude to an old slogan of the Israeli left: “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.”
“The story is nothing new. The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and there have been Israeli settlers and violence against Palestinians of one sort or another the entire time. Innumerable UN reports and articles have been written on the topic. But documentary films have a different ability to move people and to bring them close to the consequences that global politics have on single individuals,” says Rasmus Steen.
Rasmus Steen has attended several screenings of No Other Land: “I work with the Middle East on a daily basis, but even I was surprised the first time I saw No Other Land. I could never have guessed how terrible conditions are in the West Bank. And it’s been my impression that the people that have seen the film have had the same reaction.”
“The film may not change the situation right here and now, but it can create a much greater awareness of the harsh everyday life of ordinary Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. And I think, in the long term, that can create change,” says Rasmus Steen.
No Other Land follows Palestinian activist, Basel Adra, and Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, as they resist and document the violence and discrimination by Israeli military and settlers against Palestinians on the West Bank. It is the fifth IMS-supported documentary film to be nominated for an Oscar and the first to win.
Over 15,000 Danes have seen No Other Land in cinemas and a further 16,000 young Danes will see it through a school programme. Both initiatives are a product of IMS’ collaboration with CPH:DOX. No Other Land can be streamed on PARA:DOX in Denmark.
“IMS funds and supports films that have the potential to bring about societal, cultural and political change and I cannot think of a film that lives up to this criterium to a greater extent than No Other Land. This film sadly gets more relevant and urgent by the hour,” says IMS Executive Director Jesper Højberg.
IMS’ work with documentary film is supported by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and SIDA.