“Someone watches something,” Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham says to Palestinian activist and filmmaker Basel Adra, as they sit side by side in Adra’s home one night. “They’re touched, and then?” Abraham’s rhetorical question lingers in the air. Adra scratches his face, and looks away. “Exactly,” he says.
Starting in the summer of 2019, Adra, Abraham and their co-directors Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal began filming “No Other Land” as a way of documenting the Israeli army’s destruction of Adra’s home area of Masafer Yatta, in the West Bank mountains. As Adra explains through use of archival footage, this demolition project was over 20 years in the making (longer, still, if one were to go back to the beginnings of Israel’s occupation).
Twenty-two years prior to the start of this documentary, just as Adra was born to his activist parents, the Israeli army sought to destroy the homes around Masafer Yatta to build a military training area. The people of the villages fought back through Israel’s court system, but in 2019, it was ruled that the Israeli army (IDF) could resume their original plans. The Israeli courts mandated the people of Masafer Yatta — including Adra and his family — to evacuate, leading to a years-long standoff that still, in many ways, continues today.
The timeliness of “No Other Land” cannot be understated, though perhaps one could argue that it would have always been a timely story, for it is one that’s been building for decades. There is no denying, however, that while the plight of the Palestinian people has been understood by many and for a long time (the Black Panther Party, for example, famously stood in solidarity), for the first time — maybe ever — much of the rest of the world has woken up.
For the past 16 months, there has been a seemingly endless online stream of death, destruction and mayhem direct from Gaza, all of it both disturbing and heartbreaking. Some people question, then, where “No Other Land” fits into this picture; the documentary seamlessly slots in beside the hundreds of other clips and videos the world has seen, direct from the phones and cameras of Palestinians under siege. How can one assess the place of a full-length documentary of what happened in Masafer Yatta two years ago, when every day there’s a new minute-long video from another occupied region, depicting similar atrocities?
In one sense, “No Other Land” is important due to its form. As a feature-length documentary with the backing of trusted organizations such as the Sundance Institute, and represented by a powerhouse indie firm such as Cinetic Media, there is a level of authority that this documentary has — a level of authority that might make it convincing to those not already aware of or aligned with its cause.
In another sense, “No Other Land” remains essential because all documentation of these events is essential. Adra and his family innately understand this, as evidenced by both their words and the abundance of footage they’ve taken over the years. They seem to know that they can’t depend on someone from outside their community to document their side of the story. They’re forced to be the historians of their own people’s destruction in real time, in the hopes of ending that very destruction.
There’s a sequence in the first half of the film that highlights Adra’s social media documentation of the events occuring in Masafer Yatta. In the background of these posts, we hear him speaking in English — always English. It’s clear in this moment that Adra knows that the people he needs to convince, the people in power (“This is a story about power,” he says at one point), are very far removed.
Abraham, then, is the natural outlier in this story. A “human rights Israeli,” as one of Adra’s neighbors derisively calls him, Abraham tells Adra that he refused to serve in the IDF, and that his worldview first expanded beyond his society’s teachings when he learned Arabic. As a sort of representative of the occupying force (although a sympathetic one), he is consistently questioned by the Palestinians around him, some of whom make joking verbal jabs, some of whom seem uncomfortable with his presence, but all of whom are incredibly hospitable towards him.
Nevertheless, Abraham is welcomed into the Adra home by Basel’s father Nasser, and it’s clear that by the end of the documentary and after years of working together, Adra and Abraham are friends. Although Abraham has moments in which it’s clear he comes from an outside perspective (early on, Adra challenges him for expecting immediate change to a complicated issue that predates both of them), it’s also clear that he has some understanding of his place in the whole dynamic. “What do you think about what your country is doing to us?” someone asks him. “I think it’s a crime,” he responds, with no hesitation. Later, he’s confronted by an IDF officer, who asks, “Why do you care?” Abraham bites back, camera in hand: “I care because it’s being done in my name.”
However make no mistake — if any one person is the central character of this film, it is Adra, not Abraham. The film begins and ends with him; it is his people under attack, his town being demolished, his father sent to jail. He expresses his hopes, fears and dreams in striking candor (what can he make of his law degree? What if he isn’t as strong-willed as his father? Will he ever get married?). By the end of “No Other Land,” viewers become familiar with both the conflict on display and Adra as just a man — one standing bravely in the face of it.
For those familiar with the occupation of Palestine, or even the events that have transpired since October 7, 2023, while much of “No Other Land” is disturbing, little of it is shocking. One consistent, almost baffling recurrence, though, is the IDF’s response to people whose livelihoods and histories they’re destroying. In the latter half of the documentary, viewers see the repercussions Adra has to deal with as a result of his commitment to filming everything up close — the IDF surrounds his house on multiple occasions, looking specifically for him or his father. Although these are clear intimidation tactics, and though soldiers berate Adra and Abraham for filming, the army still continues in its actions.
“Aren’t you ashamed to do this?” someone asks the soldiers, through their own distress. The soldiers never reply, but their answer is clear enough: they don’t feel shame, because they don’t think they’re in the wrong. This aspect of the documentary — the part which examines shame in tandem with differing concepts of morality — runs undercurrent to the whole film, and is perhaps one of its most essential elements, for it highlights the psyche and emotional distance required to go through with an order such as putting a demolition notice on a playground.
It is perhaps one of the great tragedies of our time that Palestinians — and other oppressed and attacked groups, for that matter — are forced to humanize themselves, but there is no doubt that “No Other Land” succeeds in doing so. Sometimes as Adra films, the image blurs and the sound gets muffled. Our perception as viewers becomes no clearer than Adra’s as the man holding the camera, as he, frequently in these moments, is running from authorities. It’s incredibly effective to leave these moments in, making us feel all the more connected with Adra, as if suddenly, we are literally viewing the world from his point of view.
“No Other Land” is not a film that answers many questions, but just the same, it doesn’t ask many questions either. It poses open-ended ideas, of course — and Abraham’s place in this story is possibly the greatest point of internal tension — but even still, it succeeds in what seems to be its goal: to document. “I feel the world will end soon,” Adra tells Abraham towards the end of the film, in the winter of 2023. It’s an eerie statement to hear now in the winter of 2025, knowing all that’s happened in the time between.
But still, what much of this film points its viewers towards, and what Adra and Abraham both express repeatedly throughout, is the question of “now what?” It can’t be enough to simply watch the film and sit back, or watch it and then nominate it for an Oscar (deservedly, of course). “No Other Land” is a piece of art and a piece of journalism, but it’s also a piece of activism, one that needs its viewers participation if it is to truly succeed.
A note from the critic: Despite receiving critical acclaim, numerous festival awards and nominations, and being nominated for an Academy Award, “No Other Land” is currently still seeking a US distributor; for how essential of a film it is, it is tragically under-seen in no small part due to the cowardice companies display in refusing to support it. That said, it was given an extremely limited, independent release in select theaters. If there’s any Oscar-nominated film you choose to watch ahead of or following the Academy Awards on Sunday, let it be this one.