Film Forum

A collective of Palestinian and Israeli activist/filmmakers chronicle the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary. Over a period of five years (2019–23), Masafer Yatta resident and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra shoots video of home, school, water well, and road demolitions (legalized by the area’s conversion to an IDF training zone) and their consequent protests by displaced residents. Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham — free to move about while Adra’s movements are constricted — takes this nonviolent fight to a wider platform. The two form a complicated friendship and hopeful partnership in their efforts to resist a government-sanctioned mass eviction.

Presented with support from The Richard Brick, Geri Ashur, and Sara Bershtel Fund for Social Justice Documentaries

2024     96 MIN.     NORWAY / PALESTINE     mTUCKMAN MEDIA /CINETIC MEDIA
IN ARABIC, ENGLISH, AND HEBREW WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Trailer

Reviews

“Deeply moving…The year’s most powerful documentary.”
– Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

"[A] must-see…Shot over five years, it is an intimate, gravely harrowing chronicle of life in the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank, where residents struggle to stay put as the Israeli military bulldozes their homes into rubble. The movie has been rightly praised since it had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February...”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

CRITIC’S PICK. “A must-see… [a] harrowing and unforgettable portrait of endurance… Concise, powerful, and damning.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire