The New Yorker Radio Hour
“No Other Land”: The Collective Behind the Oscar-Nominated Documentary
Tue, 11 Feb 2025
The film “No Other Land” has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was directed by four Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, and to unpack the film’s message David Remnick speaks with two of the directors, Basel Adra, who lives in the West Bank, and Yuval Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem. The documentary takes a particular focus on the demolitions of Palestinian homes overseen by the Israeli military which often involve a lack of building permits. “You very quickly realize that it’s a political issue,” Abraham explains. “The Israeli military declines almost ninety-nine per cent of Palestinian requests for building permits. . . . There is a systematic effort to prevent” construction of homes for a growing population. “We made this movie from a perspective of activism,” Adra tells Remnick, “to try to have political pressure and impact for the community itself.” But, since they began filming, the political situation has deteriorated severely, and “all the reality today is changing . . . to be more miserable.” “No Other Land” is opening in select major cities this weekend.
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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.
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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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