Film Forum

NEWS UPDATE – March 25, 2025: NO OTHER LAND co-director Hamdan Ballal was attacked and beaten yesterday outside his home in the West Bank by Israeli settlers and subsequently detained by Israeli authorities before his eventual release today. Details around the incident have been reported by the Associated Press and New York Times, among other outlets. We are alarmed and saddened by this news and send wishes for recovery to Hamdan Ballal, and for safety for the entire film team and their families.

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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 and The Endowed Fund for Emerging Filmmakers

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

Reviews

“SUPERB. Not to be missed. A riveting and humane experience pulled out of the rubble of a never-ending war.”
– Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune

“A shocking look at Palestinian life under occupation... A piece of resistance but also humanization.”
– Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

★★★★ “POWERFUL. As an act of citizen journalism, it’s a document as damning as they come.”
– Ty Burr, The Washington Post

“Deeply moving…The year’s most powerful documentary.”
– Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
Click here to read Bilge Ebiri’s review.

“AUDACIOUS AND DEVASTATING. Its subject — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — couldn't be more consequential, and its approach, which includes a directorial team of two Israelis and two Palestinians, feels genuinely daring and bold.”
– Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times
Click here to read Alissa Wilkinson’s review.

“The most powerful nonfiction film I saw in 2024.... As an example of Palestinian-Israeli collaboration in action, Basel and Yuval and the vital movie they've made give us reason to hope.”
– Justin Chang, NPR

"[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