‘No Other Land’ is a daring chronicle of displacement and defiance

This 2024 miracle documentary has won awards in Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, England, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Holland, Ireland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. Its nominations for best film, best documentary or best foreign film number in the dozens.

And it is a miracle documentary because No Other Land developed out of despair and courage on the part of four Palestinian and Israeli journalists, who kept questioning injustice and filming evidence of it, even when their lives were in danger.

For generations the tiny West Bank towns known as Masafer Yatta clustered on hillsides and are home to families of sheep herders.  In time Occupation forces turned an eye on these lands and decided to appropriate them for other activities – a training range for soldiers and ultimately to give the land to fundamentalist settlers who claim biblical rights to Masafer Yatta.

Imagine waking up and finding armed soldiers approaching your only home with tanks, bulldozers and earth movers. Villagers argue with the troops, asking why this is happening. A woman resident stands in front of the military commander and says we have no other land; where are we supposed to go?

Mostly between 2019 and 2023 Palestinian villagers take their case to the Israeli court system, knowing in advance there is little chance of their prevailing. They create banners and posters and hold peaceful rallies on the roads, entire families participating.  Time and again villagers try to engage the Occupation forces in conversation, asking how they would feel if someone evicted their families from their homes.

As this government displacement continues, two Palestinian residents use their cell phones to record a history of what is happening. Two Israeli journalists show up with cameras to document and then publish articles about the summary displacements of entire families.

Elevating this story of injustice from occasional news items on local television to newspaper columns and finally to international attention takes years. In the meantime, more forced demolitions and removals continue. Families are reduced to living in nearby caves.

Gradually a friendship develops between Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. In slow awkward steps they reach beyond their separate and unequal positions, realizing they share a goal – to stop the unjust summary evictions of West Bank families.

So much richness and complexity is shared in this 90-minute film. Basel is a younger son but he takes center stage in keeping watch and recording the displacement turmoil. Soon the army recognizes this and threatens him with imprisonment. Both his family and Israeli journalist Yuval take turns hiding him from surprise raids by government authorities.

The families begin to trust the Israeli journalists and allow them access to their lives. Encounters with the Occupation forces grow more fraught. Compelling scenes of family life, as well as heartening instances when the military authorities are outwitted.

There is no happy ending, not yet. But the international movement to get citizens talking to one another, outside of government, is deepening and growing.

There is a heart-stopping moment when Occupation forces find Basel and start to drag him from his home. His sister throws herself on top of him, screaming. He yells to remind the military that he has a journalist card now and is protected from arrest. Under international law, it is illegal to attack journalists and media.

This remarkable documentary is absorbing on several levels:

1. showing family life in the West Bank;
2. filming the forced removal of villagers from ancestral homes;
3. illustrating the growing friendship of two journalists from vastly different cultures;
4. demonstrating the struggle of independent journalists to get stories to the outside world.

There is no happy ending, not yet. But the international movement to get citizens talking to one another, outside of government, is deepening and growing.

No Other Land is still seeking a national distributor in the U.S. However, local movie houses are stepping up and offering the documentary; the Roxie in SF and the Rialto in Sebastopol, for example. Check online for more options.