Pakistani celebrities react to Palestine's first Oscar win

No Other Land, a film about the displacement of a Palestinian community at the hands of the Israeli military, won the documentary feature film Oscar on Sunday, reported Reuters. A Palestinian-Israeli co-production, the film is directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor.

Since then, Pakistani celebrities have been applauding its incredible accomplishment. Among those who took to Instagram Stories to support the achievement was Mahira Khan, who re-shared a clip of co-director Basel Adra's speech after winning the award.

Khan's recognition of the team's victory came with a set of emojis of the Palestinian flag. Meanwhile, Ali Sethi re-shared a photo of Adra beside displaced West Bank residents - namely Farisa Abu Aram and Kifah Adara - with their Academy award.

Nadia Afgan, however, championed nuanced sentiments by sharing a video from digital creator Michael Schirtzer, who said that the victors' speech was laced with Zionist ideas. Schirtzer began by congratulating the director and acknowledging Palestinian artists for standing their ground in an industry which is "predominantly controlled by Zionists".

Schirtzer then critiqued the film's Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham's speech for focusing on the release of Israeli hostages more than the incomparable genocide of Palestine. He described this as "liberal Zionism", an ideology that "tries to blur the lines between the coloniser and the colonised and reduces the issue of settler colonialism to the issue of equal rights".

While Afgan let the digital creator's words speak for themselves without adding to them, she maintained her streak of supporting Palestine on social media. Just her profile picture, which is an image of the nation's flag, is enough to indicate her stance. In the past, many Pakistani celebrities have condemned the genocide in Palestine, such as Yumna Zaidi, Asim Azhar, Adnan Malik, Iqra Aziz, and more.

Since its release in February last year, No Other Land graced the Berlin International Film Festival 2024, where it won the Berlinale Documentary Award and the Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film.

"I am here celebrating the award, but it is also very hard for me to celebrate when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza. Masafer Yatta, my community, is being razed by Israeli bulldozers. I ask one thing: for Germany, as I am in Berlin here, to respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel," Adra said in his acceptance speech.