Basel Adra is trying to take a drag off his hookah in peace when Yuval Abraham wants to tell him how much he admires him in “No Other Land,” astonished by the psychological strength it must take to live in Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian village in the West Bank under constant siege from Israeli settlers, emboldened by a recent Israeli Supreme Court ruling that the territory be redeveloped for a military training center after two decades of deliberation. By this point, Yuval, an Israeli journalist, has known Basel for at least a year and probably should have better sense than to bring something serious up in this rare moment of relaxation for the activist, who carries the weight of raising awareness for the unlawful daily destruction of his neighbor’s personal property but also caring for his mother and father who have carved out a humble life operating a gas station. In collaboration with co-directors Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, you can see both sides of the conversation the two have beyond what shifting camera angles can achieve when Yuval stares at Basel with a mix of disbelief and reverence and all Basel can do is look ahead to what’s directly in front of him, just trying to make it through another day.
“No Other Land” couldn’t be released at a more fortuitous time given the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, but it meets the moment in a truly remarkable way, having wrapped production in October 2023 when all hell broke out and crisply depicts a much longer campaign to evict Palestinians from their home land. Likely the most clear-eyed view of what it’s like to live under occupation, the film leaves Masafer Yatta only as much as Basel does, which is to say hardly any at all when the village is surrounded by security checkpoints and the green license plate on his car prevents him from going any further while the yellow license plates held by Israelis give them free rein. The inability to move is ironic when that’s all Israelis in the area would like, bringing in bulldozers to tear down the permanent houses that still exist or any temporary shacks that have been erected in their place with the goal of residents abandoning the land and by extension their claim to it. Not much can be passed down within families as a result, but Basel’s first meeting with Yuval is on a well-traveled camera that his family has been intent on using to collect as much footage as they can over the years of unjust treatment, useful for when Basel’s father is arrested for no reason or to illustrate a long pattern of abuse from soldiers that carry out the demolition and draw weapons towards anyone that confronts them.
The routine is wearying for those living through it, but it is revelatory for viewers abroad who can bear witness to the exhausting and aggressive tactics of the Israeli military and settlers in a place where the law seems arbitrary in stark terms that have rarely reached the big screen before. For as punishing as what the residents of Masafer Yatta endure, the filmmakers behind “No Other Land” create a disarming documentary, conscious of bombarding viewers with scenes of violence and avoiding sensationalism to take a longer view over three years of filming to capture the devastating impact that living under such fearful circumstances has on the community. The relationship that Basel and Yuval have in front of the camera prove just as crucial as the one off it in making this so accessible, attempting to keep things light for one another as the toll on Basel in trying to do in taking care of his family and exposing the horrors of what they all experience to the broader global community at the same time via social media only becomes greater. After years spent trying to get international attention on the atrocities in the West Bank, they have made the truly must-see film when the world is watching, putting the unimaginable in undeniably human terms.
“No Other Land” will open on November 1st in New York for a one-week Oscar qualifying run at Film at Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Film Center.