This article was originally published on Dazed MENA:
As Yuval Abraham, co-director of the now Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, took to the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to accept the award for best documentary earlier today (March 2), he delivered a speech that resonated with most of those in attendance. Palestinians and Israelis had made the film together “because together our voices are stronger,” he said, before calling for “a different path; a political solution, without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people.”
The sentiment was hopeful. The kind that makes an Oscar audience clap and nod in agreement. But despite its good intentions, it was naive and, crucially, rooted in a notion that places the occupier and the occupied on equal footing.
That same underlying tension runs through No Other Land itself. The film is a harrowing, vital documentation of the ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta. In it, Yuval – newly acquainted with Palestinian activist Basel Adra and the brutal reality of home demolitions and settler violence in his community, Masafer Yatta – wants change, and he wants it fast. Basel, No Other Land’s co-director, calls him out for it. “You want everything to happen quickly,” he tells Yuval. “Like you’ve come to solve everything in ten days.
“Get used to failing. You’re a loser.”
Yuval understands the privilege of his Jewish, Israeli identity – that even as an activist for Palestinian rights, his voice and his life hold more weight than Basel’s.
It’s a powerful moment, one of many that make No Other Land an enraging portrait of life under occupation. But there’s an unsettling question underneath it all: Is this really why the Oscars recognised No Other Land?
Yes, the film has been universally acclaimed for its unflinching portrayal of the apartheid the Zionist state subjects Palestinians to. But the defining narrative in the wake of its Oscar win has been something else: its status as an Israeli-Palestinian co-production. Headlines from major outlets, including Reuters, have omitted the film’s name entirely, instead focusing solely on the fact that an “Israeli-Palestinian” movie won.
Others have framed its success around the idea that Israelis and Palestinians came together to make art – rarely mentioning the ethnic cleansing at the heart of the film.
This is a familiar pattern. The idea of balance between the coloniser and the colonised, and the belief that “good people on both sides” can overcome their differences through dialogue and collaboration remains irresistible to liberal audiences. It also erases the reality of occupation and the violent power imbalance that defines it. It’s not No Other Land‘s content that is currently capturing headlines – it’s the optics.
This isn’t new. Co-productions have long been the most palatable way for Palestinian stories to reach Western award stages. Five Broken Cameras, another Israeli-Palestinian co-production, was nominated for best documentary at the 2013 Oscars. Like No Other Land, it exposed the brutality of Israeli occupation – but, ostensibly, also like No Other Land, that wasn’t the only reason it was nominated.
Meanwhile, only two feature film submissions from Palestine have ever been nominated for an Oscar: Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now (2005) and Omar (2013). And even these two were fraught with political controversy. Palestinian representation at Western award ceremonies continues to exist within the framework of co-productions.
Even with No Other Land’s Oscar win, the structural limitations remain clear. The film still lacks an American distributor. Its success at festivals has not been matched by commercial support. And for many, the film’s recognition seems to come with an unspoken condition: the fetishisation of Palestinian suffering.
In his book Perfect Victims, published earlier this year, Palestinian writer and poet Mohammed el-Kurd engages with the politics of co-productions. “No one – not the producer of the festival, not the columnist writing a review – seems to care about the content of the film, whether it is good or garbage,” he writes. “What matters most is that the film was co-directed, a mode that satisfies a libidinal urge in the viewers. They eavesdrop on a forbidden conversation, a titillating reconciliation between the slayer and the slain.”
Make no mistake: No Other Land is an excellent documentary. Its raw, unfiltered storytelling captures the machinery of occupation with unrelenting clarity. It demands attention. It is urgent. But its reception has been shaped not just by its content but also by the reality that it satisfies that libidinal urge for viewers.
Would it have been nominated – let alone won – if Yuval Abraham weren’t attached to it? Would it have made the impact it has without the uproar over German institutions censoring Palestinian voices at the Berlin Film Festival?
During his acceptance speech earlier today, Basel Adra called No Other Land a reflection of “the harsh reality” that Palestinians have endured for decades. Then he made a plea: “We call on the world to take serious action to stop the injustice and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
The Oscar audience clapped. They nodded. But will anyone actually do anything? I’ll leave that for you to answer.
This article was originally published on Dazed MENA.