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The makers of the 'No Other Land' documentary, after winning the Best Documentary Oscar at the 2025 Academy Awards today, made a defiant speech lamenting the "ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people" and called on the world to "take serious actions to stop the injustice".
As directors Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor accepted the award, they spoke about the ongoing war in Gaza--which erupted after the October 7 terror attack--and lamented America's foreign policy in this long-standing conflict. Palestinian journalist and activist Basel Adra said, as quoted by Variety, "We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people." "About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope for my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I'm living now...No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist," he added. 'No Other Land' follows a Palestinian family forced from their home in the West Bank by the Israeli government. The film also shows the friendship between Adra, a Palestinian journalist, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, despite the long-standing Israel-Palestine conflict. According to CNN, the documentary tells the story of the continued demolition by Israeli authorities of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Hebron mountains of the West Bank where Basel Adra, one of the directors, lives with his family. The documentary follows the Israeli government's attempt to evict the villagers by force, having claimed the land for a military training facility and firing range in 1981. Viewers see the local playground being torn down, the killing of Adra's brother by Israeli soldiers, and other attacks by Jewish settlers while the community tries to survive. Speaking about the daily inequality they experience, Abraham drew a comparison between the differential treatment given to a citizen living in Israel and one living in Palestine. "We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life, and he cannot control them. There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people," Abraham said. The Israeli journalist also lamented the United States accusing them of "blocking the possibility of peace." "Why can't you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel's people are truly free and safe?" Abraham asked, according to Variety. Since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, 'No Other Land' has received praise from all corners of the world and has won awards at major film festivals, including Toronto, Vancouver, and New York. It also won the audience award and documentary film award at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2024, as well as the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Non-Fiction Film. However, despite its success, the film has struggled to find a distributor in the US, so its makers arranged for it to have a one-week run at the Lincoln Center in November in order to qualify for tonight's Oscars, as reported by Al Jazeera. (ANI)
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