The documentary “No Other Land,” which opens Friday at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, has been nominated for an Academy Award. Even after the Oscars announcement, however, the film has no official distributor in the United States.
Distributors and streaming platforms have been reluctant to partner with it; the documentary itself is an act of resistance. In the face of the systematic destruction of the homes of Palestinian families who have lived for generations in Masafer Yatta, a group of villages in the West Bank, activists Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal began the guerrilla work of filming those Israeli military operations in 2019.
When two independent Israeli journalists, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, arrived to cover the demolitions, the four teamed together to make their movie. Filming ended in 2023, before the Israel-Hamas war erupted following the Oct. 7 attacks.
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We arranged a video call with Abraham (who was in Jerusalem) and Adra (from Masafer Yatta).
Q. Basel, I saw your posts on X. You were under siege just yesterday, yes?
Basel Adra: A village nearby, the village of my friend. We’re OK, physically.
Q. Can you talk about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the United States and President Trump’s claim that the US will “take over” Gaza?
Adra: Yeah, it is a discussion, especially after 15 months of killing, all of what we’ve been watching on our phones and the news. Flattening Gaza to the ground. I mean, Trump is very clear in his words — just the power of somebody holding all the power in the world. He thinks he can do whatever he wants, because he knows nobody can stop him.
Q. This is what your film is about. In Masafer Yatta, the Israeli government feels like it has all the power. Yet you two and your team — Basel, your whole family and your neighbors — have continued to fight. What else can you do?
Adra: Exactly — what else can we do? We are existing here. We’ve been living here all our life, and we want to defend our homeland as much as we can, even though we are very powerless. But we will keep trying.
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Q. Can you tell me about your family’s history in Masafer Yatta?
Adra: From the stories that I know, the grandfather of my grandfather — my father and uncles remember, and they tell the story of the life of their father and their grandfather in the land. We always have been living here, in these ancient caves. It’s a small community that keeps sheep, mainly, on the land and makes their income from farming and cultivating the land. Producing milk and yogurt and cheese.
Q. Yuval, what drew you to the village?
Yuval Abraham: I grew up in a very mainstream Israeli town. Things began to change after I studied the Arabic language, which made me see Palestinians in ways that were not represented by the media, which is often very demonizing. I began going to the West Bank to see the lives of normal people living under the control of the military of my country. I became quite obsessed with this policy of house demolitions. We connected quite quickly through shared work and journalism. It’s been quite a journey over five years. We went through very difficult and scary and violent moments together, but also we created something together.
Q. Did you do your compulsory military service as an Israeli citizen?
Abraham: I was drafted into the military, but in the end I did a volunteer service. I was working in schools with Israeli and Palestinian children. Working with children was a good way for me to improve my Arabic. When you’re talking with kids, it’s somehow easier, because they talk a lot and they’re not shy.
Q. How many Israelis share your viewpoint?
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Abraham: [After Oct. 7] the society went very much to the right and there is, sadly, politically speaking, no talk for a political horizon, for some kind of a political solution that will ensure that Palestinians have freedom and dignity.
Look, as an Israeli, I feel most of my work is with the Israeli society. I write mainly in Hebrew. But because I feel very much like a minority, we are persecuted, in a way. There was a right-wing mob in front of my family’s house. We need help from outside. We need international pressure. Because I think people here who are being killed and dying in the Masafer Yatta community don’t have time to wait.
Q. Basel, that emotional image of you lying down on the land — I’m wondering if you can tell me how you were feeling at that moment.
Adra: I was very exhausted that day. It was the longest day I ever remember of destruction, demolition. I remember a very big convoy of military with bulldozers, and they were moving from one community to another. That day we ran out of battery and power, running after the soldiers and bulldozers. They were making checkpoints on the roads, and we had to run long distances through the hills and the fields to try to catch the documentation. It was a very tough day.
Q. What does your friendship mean?
Abraham: I think it’s a symbol for what could be if the occupation ends and there’s a just political solution. No coexistence if one side doesn’t have existence. Today, we are not equal. I live under civilian law. Basel lives under military law. I can travel to Basel. Basel cannot travel and see me, because he cannot enter Jerusalem. I have a state, and Basel does not. It’s all quite unfair and unjust. Human rights organizations are obviously referring to this as apartheid. In order for our children or grandchildren to be truly equal, there has to be freedom for everybody. Of course this path is possible, but [Basel and I] are powerless. And the sad thing is, the people who have power not only are not advocating for this path — they are taking us on another path that will only have more and more violence and death and oppression. We hope our film can contribute a bit to change that.
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Interview was edited and condensed.
James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.
