‘You’re Not Thinking About the Film. You’re Filming to Survive.’

It’s rare that a film without an American distribution deal is nominated for an Oscar, but that’s not the only remarkable thing about No Other Land. The documentary from co-directors and co-writers Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor — a collective of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers — is an intimate documentation of the tolls of bearing witness to violence, and it has regularly made headlines since its festival run (like when Berlin’s mayor called the Israeli and Jewish Abraham “antisemitic” for his Berlinale acceptance speech, which described Palestinians as living under an “apartheid”). But No Other Land is so tightly wound, and so plainly humane, that its political urgency has never depended on the extra press.

Filmed between 2019 and 2023, with its final act acknowledging the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023, No Other Land focuses on the communities living in Masafer Yatta, a collective of Palestinian villages in the West Bank. Journalist Adra holds a law degree and comes from an activist Palestinian family that regularly filmed Israeli infringement into their home village. After the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the eviction of 1,000 Palestinians from Masafer Yatta so that Israel could annex the land as a military training base, he began filming the soldiers’ destruction of homes, attacks on civilians, and aid to illegal settlers enacting similar violence. He’s eventually joined by fellow journalist Abraham, an Israeli who disagrees with his government’s policy toward Palestinians. The film tracks both Masafer Yatta’s systematic demolition and their collaborative, often wistful friendship. There are a lot of shocking and demoralizing moments in No Other Land, from an Israeli soldier shooting and paralyzing a villager whose family is then forced to live in a cave because their home has been destroyed, to Adra and Abraham running from groups of masked settlers after recording their ambushes. But some of the film’s most tender moments place the camera in front of Adra and Abraham as they smoke hookah together, grapple with the unfairness of their circumstances, and wonder about their futures when because of Israeli law, they’re rarely treated as equals.

After an awards-qualifying run at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center last November, No Other Land opened at Film Forum in late January and was nominated for the Academy Awards’ Best Documentary Feature Film. (The directors are expected to attend the ceremony in March.) The film expanded to more theaters around the country last week thanks to financing from the its producers. The documentary arrives at a time when Doctors Without Borders and various arms of the United Nations, including the UNRWA and the Human Rights Office, have issued warnings about the increased rate of Israeli violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank and the surging death toll there after the January 19 Israel-Hamas cease-fire in Gaza. Adra and Abraham, who separately join our Zoom interview, know that their work isn’t done.

Basel, I saw your posts on X from earlier this week about the latest settler attack in Masafer Yatta. I know there has been more violence in the West Bank against Palestinians since the Gaza cease-fire. Are you all right? How have things been?
Basel Adra: I’m doing okay. Thank you for asking. The last attacks were really, really hard and scary. The last one was two days ago. Last week as well, there was another attack on another friend’s home. They burned his car. We are okay physically, but not okay in how we feel. I mean, the reality is that setters can come in the day and in the night and they can just attack homes, and us physically, and just move away. There is no protection. The police, the army, are under the service of the settlers in this area, and nothing more than that. It is what it is.

There are so many sequences in the film that connect with what you just described, and the first thing I want to ask about is the sequence where Israeli soldiers come to your village in order to arrest you. You expected they might do this, because a soldier had threatened you earlier in the documentary. You leave your family home and hide from them, while Yuval films their search of the village and confronts them. What do you both remember about that experience? How did you prepare for filming that night? 
Yuval Abraham: Basel, you can start.

BA: Rachel and Yuval decided to sleep over at my home, here with me, and that happened most of the time while we worked on the movie. We work here from my home and we move in the field together from here. I wouldn’t stay and film the soldiers when they came to search for me, but for Rachel and Yuval — to be honest, they are Israelis. They have the privilege that they can use the camera in front of the soldiers and film. They are not Palestinians. For me, it’s different. They decided to stay and to film the soldiers, and for Yuval to start to argue with the soldiers.

Basel, it looks like you’re behind a rock wall. How much of what was happening could you see from where you were? 
BA: Not everything. I didn’t know Yuval was arguing with the soldiers, but I saw the vehicles in the road in front of my home, and the soldiers moving inside and out. I was in a place where I made sure I could watch them and they couldn’t watch me.

Yuval, what do you remember about that night? And about arguing with the soldiers? 
YA: It was very scary because it happened not long after we had a protest — a Palestinian, Israeli, and international nonviolent protest after Masafer Yatta local named Harun Abu Aram was shot and eventually killed by a soldier. Harun was trying to build a house, with a generator, that was destroyed, and he was just executed. As you said, we already got some indication that the soldiers might be returning at night to try to take Basel. We saw the military Jeeps and the police vehicles congregating in the entrance of the village, and one of the things we learned is that when the home demolitions are happening during the day, the camera can film much more easily. I don’t want to say the soldiers have more tolerance for filming during the day, because they try to prevent it, but let’s say when they come and invade the village at night, the aggression is much, much higher. Many times they break the camera or they take it, and it’s even more dangerous to film. And as Basel said, it was clear that for this, he would not be able to film as much because of the danger.

I remember it was very cold outside, and the soldiers went house after house, asking “Where is Basel?” I don’t think I even really argued with the soldiers. The soldier came to me and told me to take all of my stuff from Basel’s house, to empty the house. And I just remember asking them, “Are you doing this as revenge for the protest?” I talked to them in Hebrew. “Is it some kind of revenge or something?” They wouldn’t respond to me. I remember the relief I felt when they left and when I saw that Basel was okay, because I was very worried for him. And then the entire family was together and using humor to overcome the moment, in a way. Rachel is the cinematographer, and she’s amazing. Physically, she’s quite small, and she always manages to be in different situations and somehow fit in. She goes really close to the soldiers. I think she’s one of the bravest people that I know, and she managed to film it all.

I was surprised by something in this scene that continues through the film — that the soldiers are also filming you guys. I’m curious what their motivations are for filming you back, and if either of you have thoughts on that. 
YA: It’s a good question. What do you think, Basel?

BA: I think it’s different motivations, but the soldiers are always filming. Either they have cameras on their heads or on their chests, or they film with their personal phones. I believe a lot of times some specific soldiers or commanders send their recordings to settlers around the outpost, or to settler newspapers or TV broadcasts, because they come from that same circle. Because sometimes it has happened where somebody would be arrested and handcuffed in a military Jeep, and the settlers on social media would have a picture of that person and publish it, and for sure they got it from an Israeli soldier in the Jeep. A lot of times the settlers will know our names and our details, and even that of Israeli or international activists who come to our area. Also, I think it’s just for fun, for the soldiers’ WhatsApp groups or for their families. And for sure, for security — if they are doing something, they want to film it and tell their commanders. For example, when they issued that this was a closed military area, they wanted to show that they told people “This is a closed military area” before arresting them or violently attacking them.

The camera is strong proof, evidence, of what happened.

YA: I feel another reason is, you know, at the end of the day, for the community of Masafer Yatta and for us, when we are there, the only tool we have is the camera. They are fully armed and coming with weapons, and sometimes I felt that it’s a way to try and respond like, “Even this thing that you have — you filming us — we are doing it back.” This is just a feeling, because sometimes I see the soldiers taking out the cameras only when they see that they are being filmed. It’s like, “We’re not going to let you look at us. You are supposed to be looked at. You are supposed to be surveilled. You are supposed to be monitored. It’s the powerful that are supposed to look, not the person who is being controlled.” I think that also plays a role, alongside everything else.

That leads into my next question, which is about the settler attacks in the documentary. These are attacks by masked settlers on Palestinian villages, and it looks like Israeli soldiers are standing by and letting it happen. During one of these ambushes, the settlers come after you, Basel, and during another, the soldiers also physically assault you. I’m wondering if at any point in these situations or others, either of you thought, We shouldn’t film.  
BA: Unfortunately, yes. Trying to be physically safe is hard, because a lot of times we just can’t, as you could see in the documentary. Sometimes during the night, there would be attacks. It’s scary to move on the road, from one community to another, especially because part of the road would be walking. You wouldn’t see in the night who’s a soldier, and it might happen that they fire ammunition. That’s the scary thing.

But in this instance, you two decide to keep filming. Tell me about what you remember from these altercations, and how you two communicated as filmmakers as the attacks are happening.
BA: This happened in 2021. I got a call saying there were 60 to 80 masked settlers attacking a community that was very close to me, our neighbors. I run there and I start to film. I saw a very horrific scene of settlers everywhere, around people’s houses, smashing properties, throwing stones. There were soldiers who were shooting tear gas and stun grenades and live ammunition. It was a few minutes that I filmed, and I think that was the only documentation of the huge attacks that happened in this community. And yeah, there was no way to even think in that moment when the settler pointed at me and told the others, and they started to run after me. They just wanted physically to catch me, for the camera, and attack me. I was running as fast as I could and just thinking about if they would catch me, how bad this would be. Luckily I ran out of their hands and I kept the documentation in my camera. Then there’s a scene from that attack where the settlers moved from that community to my village, where a soldier tried to shoot me. Yuval is on the other side, luckily, filming and saying to the soldier, “Don’t shoot him.” When the soldier saw that Yuval is filming him as well, he stopped.

The Oscars are going to be one night, which is important. But we are going to continue our work until the occupation ends.

Yuval, during one of these attacks, the settlers say to you, “Go make some article. Go make some video.” There’s taunting toward you both for what you’re trying to do. 
YA: One of the hardest days that we had was this settler attack. It was the morning. I was not in Masafer Yatta, I was in my house in Jerusalem, and I got a voice message from Basel. I remember I never heard his voice like that. It was, like, a five-second WhatsApp message, and he was screaming something like, “The settlers are doing a pogrom.” Immediately my heart started racing and I ran to my car and I began driving. I never drove so fast in my life, because I understood from his voice that nothing like this has happened. It was the voice of someone who was really in a situation where they’re seeing, you know, a 3-year-old child whose skull was fractured due to this attack. We were standing and there were soldiers and masked settlers. And I remember looking at the sky and seeing that everything was rocks, because they were throwing rocks at us. Some were throwing with their hands, so they were easy to dodge. Then other rocks were with slingshots, so they came almost as fast as a bullet. I saw a soldier with his finger on the trigger and pointing his gun at Basel, and I immediately told the soldier in Hebrew that I’m filming him.

This is part of how we worked as filmmakers on the movie, and generally also as activists in this region. You very quickly realize that you need more than one camera, because it’s not enough that there is one person filming. There has to be someone filming the person who is filming, because if that is not the case, then that person can be shot or attacked. It was complete chaos. It was very hard to just even hold the camera, you know, because you are shaking and you’re very much afraid. And in these kinds of moments, you’re not thinking about the film. It’s not why you’re filming. You are filming to have some way to survive this. It’s not always the case, of course, as we are seeing today especially in the Gaza Strip — but if they know they are being filmed, maybe sometimes the violence will be less. It was a very, very difficult moment. Immediately after, we published the videos of this attack on social media, and they reached all over the world. Basel, the fact that he was there and risked his life to film the attack, if that didn’t happen, it would be much easier for the settlers and the army to tell some kind of lie, or to tell a different kind of story. And the camera is strong proof, evidence, of what happened.

One of the final sequences of the film is the bulldozing of the community school that you attended as a child, Basel, and which was built in secret when you were young. Can you share how those children are being educated now? Has the village been able to build another school for them? 
BA: That was a very sad day. The soldiers came to the school on a normal day and told everybody that they have to move away so they can destroy their school. In the beginning, the teachers and the students refused to. They wanted to protest against this decision, and the villagers gathered — women, men — to try and prevent the destruction of the school. Unfortunately, the soldiers shut the doors on the students inside and then started to use stun grenades against the adults and villagers, pushing them around. That made the children inside the classes very scared, because they didn’t have the sense of what was going on outside — they’re just hearing the noise and the stun grenades, and their mothers and fathers shouting and being pushed by soldiers. Some of them jumped, even, from the windows to run to their homes. And yeah, it was destroyed. They got funding to have tents, and just a few days later, the military came back and confiscated them. So far they are studying in an old cave and a room that was donated by one of the villagers.

No Other Land has been nominated at this year’s Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, despite not getting a distribution deal in the U.S. I know you didn’t make the documentary for an award, but I’m wondering how you each feel about the nomination. 
BA: The Oscars, they make the movie heard more, and open the eyes of a larger audience, I assume, which is a great thing. We want millions around the world to watch No Other Land — not from a movie perspective, but I believe that this movie can teach people a lot. They can learn a lot of what’s happening on the ground on a daily basis under the occupation, especially those who don’t know exactly what’s going on. They just see things in the media here and there, but the story of Masafer Yatta through No Other Land can explain a lot to the audience, of what’s going on in reality and how things are here. It’s an important thing.

YA: We’re really honored to be nominated for the Oscar. As Basel said, it’s an opportunity to get more people to see the film, especially in the United States, where we’ve had difficulty getting it seen through a bigger kind of platform and streamer, for different political reasons, I believe. I hope the Oscar can maybe change that. We are also remembering that this is a very long journey, as Basel says in the film. You have to have a lot of patience, and sure, the Oscar is going to be one night, which is important. But we are going to continue our work until the occupation ends and there is a just political solution that provides true freedom and justice for everybody living in this land. We are also remembering that — to keep our feet on the ground.

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