The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
11 Feb 2025
Full Episode
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In a week of astonishing headlines, maybe nothing was more astonishing than Donald Trump's proposal that the United States take over Gaza, ethnically cleanse the region of Palestinians, permanently exiling a population already traumatized by war, and then turn the whole thing into what Trump calls the Riviera of the Middle East.
Was this a serious proposal? It certainly put a smile on the face of Benjamin Netanyahu, who's not only intent on obliterating Hamas in Gaza, but at the same time, making Israel's control of the West Bank irreversible. Even if Trump's proposal was merely part of his strategy of flooding the zone, the reality is no less troubling.
And to understand what that reality is, particularly in the West Bank, there's a new documentary film that you should see called No Other Land. In one scene, Palestinians are protesting the demolition of their homes. They're walking down the road carrying balloons and banners.
But the protest is banned under Israeli law, and the army is at the ready alongside them with combat gear, rifles, and stun grenades. No Other Land is opening in just a handful of theaters around the country this week. It's been nominated as Best Documentary at the Academy Awards.
Two Palestinian and two Israeli filmmakers collaborated to make No Other Land, and I spoke over Zoom with two of them, Basel Adra, who lives in the West Bank, and Yuval Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem. Because so few people have seen this film, I'd like to begin, first of all, this is, first and foremost, begins with Basel's life.
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