“No Other Land” has won the best documentary feature film Oscar.
The project tells the story of Bank Masafer Yatta community through the lens of a Palestinian activist, Basel Adra, and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, among others.
Rachel Szor, on the left, Hamdan Ballal, Basilea Adra and Yuval Abraham accept the award for the best documentary feature film to “No Other Land” during the Oscar on March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.
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“‘No other land’ reflects the harsh reality we have been supporting for decades and still resist,” Adra said when the filmmakers accepted the Oscar.
“We made this movie, Palestinians and Israelis, because together, our voices are stronger,” Abraham said, while the crowd applauded. “See you. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people must end. Israeli hostages made brutally in the crime of October 7, which must be released.”
Adra reflected on how to become a father has compacted him.
“About two months ago I became a father, and my hope for my daughter is that I will not have to live the same life that I am living now,” Adra said.
Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham accept the “No Other Land” Documentary Prize on stage during the 97th Annual Oscar at the Dolby Theater, on March 2, 2025, in Hollywood, California.
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Tens of thousands of people, including dozens of women and children not combatants in Gaza, were killed in the first year of struggle between Hamas and Israel after Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Phase 1 of the Alto El Fuego de Israel agreement with Hamas, during which many Israeli hostages were released from Gaza, has expired. Negotiations regarding phase 2 are still ongoing. A total of 59 hostages captured on October 7 remain in Gaza; Of them, 24 are supposed to be alive.
“No other land” explores the expulsion of the Palestinians in Masafer Yatta of their homeland, and includes discouraging images of the demolition and destruction of Israel in the region that accompany with the elimination of the Palestinians.
Masafer Yatta is a small community in southern Bank that has become a focus of Palestinian eviction and displacement at the hands of Israeli authorities.
Together with the heartbreaking images of destruction, the film tells another story of an unlikely friendship between the two filmmakers born on both sides of the conflict.
“Its complex link is pursued by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, which lives under a brutal military, and Yuval occupation, without restrictions and free,” he read a synopsis For the movie.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since its victory in the Six Day War in 1967.
Israel’s demolition efforts in the West Bank, in what Israel considers that they are illegal structures, have been in an effort to clear the way for Israeli settlers to move to the region for reasons that include religious beliefs and a better quality of life.
“This film, from a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest and most scary moments of the region, as an act of creative resistance,” the synopsis continued.
A scene of the movie “No other land.”
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The filmmakers behind the powerful project are Adra, Rachel Szor, director of photography and Israeli director, Hamdan Balla, a Palestinian filmmaker and Abraham.
The film was filmed for several years between 2019 and 2023.
When winning the award, “no other Land” beat other nominees “Black Box Diaries”, “War of Porcelain”, “Sound Band of a coup d’etat” and “Sugar cane” for the first prize.
In an interview with the New York TimesAbraham discussed the risks involved with the realization of the documentary.
“We worked five years in this and Basel risked his life: I saw it almost to shooting twice or three times,” Abraham told the newspaper. “It is only a minimum amount of courage to give it the stage we believe it deserves, that the people of Masafer Yatta deserve. But we still hope it changes.”
Previously, the documentary won the Berlinale documentary award.