Basel Adra, the Palestinian co-director of Oscar-winning film No Other Land, addressed the United Nations after a screening of his documentary, as per a video released by TRT World on YouTube. Adra's remarks were directed to the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
"I have carried a camera since I was a teenager. I started filming what's been happening to my village and the villages around me and my family. [I filmed] the violence of the settlers, the Israeli army," Adra said in his speech.
He added that the reason he took up this pursuit was because he saw bulldozers frequently entering the communities around him, destroying homes and properties, and committing more such acts of violence.
"But I have felt that this is not even interesting for a lot of journalists to write about. It means that this reality has become a routine. And for us, it's not a routine. For the families who are losing their loved ones, for those who are suffering, it's not a routine," he stressed.
The filmmaker reiterated that this is why he picked up the camera, because he believes that people must know about the suffering of Palestine. "I wanted the world to know that we live on this land, that we exist, and to see what we face on a daily basis under this brutal occupation."
No Other Land is a Palestinian-Israeli collective project that highlights Israeli soldiers' destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta and the alliance that develops between the Palestinian activist Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham - another one of the film's four co-directors.
The film won the doc feature film Oscar at the Academy Awards this year. Despite this achievement, however, Adra feels that they "went back to the same reality".
Following this, James Turpin - the Chief of Prevention and Sustaining Peace Section, UN Human Rights - said that his office has worked for 15 years to monitor, record, and warn about the human rights crisis in Palestine "and the widespread violations resulting from Israel's 57-year military occupation."
As per UN News, he added, "The documentary film, No Other Land, brings to life, in a compelling and accessible way, what the UN has documented in countless reports."
Silenced celebrations
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.
In March, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences came under fire for a statement it issued following the brutal assault and detention of Hamdan Ballal, co-director of No Other Land. As per IndieWire, the Academy's letter, signed by CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang, made no mention of Ballal, the film, or the incident.
Instead, the statement broadly condemned "harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints." It also emphasised the Academy's role in representing its nearly 11,000 members, who hold "many unique viewpoints." The letter framed the organisation as committed to storytelling and empathy but avoided addressing Ballal's ordeal directly.
Over 190 Academy members, including high-profile figures like Boots Riley and Mark Ruffalo, signed a letter condemning the Academy's inaction. "It is indefensible for an organisation to recognise a film with an award in the first week of March and then fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later," the letter read.
The Academy later apologised for failing "to directly acknowledge Mr Ballal and the film by name".
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ