No Other Land (2024)

The documentary that could not get a U.S. distributer (it is a political hot potato) and few interviews (one of the directors is Palestinean) won the Best Documentary at this year's Oscars, as well as at many other award ceremonies. It is directed by the courageous Palestinian-Israeli filmmaking collective of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and it is compassionate, thoughtful, and even revolutionary. It is a devastating profile of the community of Masafer Yatta (a group of Palestinian villages in the West Bank constantly on the brink of destruction), the people living in perpetual uncertainty, and the way state violence consumes entire generations. This battle is mostly seen through the young eyes of Basel. A 28-year-old Palestinian activist, filmmaker and journalist, he has spent all of his life living in the shadow of annihilation as the documentary captures how the Israeli military routinely destroys their homes with bulldozers. In every shot where we see these convoys of destruction approaching on the horizon, there is a sense of grim familiarity and impending loss seen in the faces of the people we cut to. It’s a compassionately constructed film — it never looks away from the grimness.