The Film on Palestine Everyone’s Talking About but Few Can See

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The Film on Palestine Everyone’s Talking About but Few Can See Politics, controversy, and industry caution keep No Other Land off major platforms BY FILIPA PAJEVIC

Published 6:30, August 21, 2025 A promotional still for No Other LandAntipode Films / Facebook

“My family has been filming our community being erased by this brutal occupation,” said Basel Adra, standing beside his co-director Yuval Abraham as their film, No Other Land, won the Berlinale Documentary Award in February 2024, its first major prize. “I am Israeli, Basel is Palestinian, and in two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal,” said Abraham.

Their film—co-directed with Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian photographer and farmer, and Rachel Szor, an Israeli cinematographer—captures daily life under Israeli occupation in Masafer Yatta, a cluster of Palestinian villages in the West Bank: Israeli soldiers, enabled by military law, bulldozing homes and schools to rubble, slashing water pipes, filling wells with concrete, driving Palestinian families into caves. Raw footage, gathered from 2019 to 2023, shows soldiers manhandling children and elders and standing by, or joining in, as settlers shoot at unarmed men who stand in their way. The film also captures the budding, sometimes tense, friendship between Adra, a law school graduate and activist, and Abraham, a journalist. “This situation of apartheid between us,” said Abraham in the Berlinale speech, “it has to end.”

The film went on to win major prizes in Denmark, Switzerland, and Poland, drawing acclaim across Europe. In Canada, its premiere reportedly sold out at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival—TIFF; No Other Land subsequently scooped up audience awards at festivals in Vancouver and Montreal.

Since then, it has secured distribution in at least twenty-four countries, including the UK and Austria, but still has no mainstream distributor in the US or Canada, even after winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film, in March. Distributors normally acquire rights to a film if they like it and (or) see it as profitable, after which they tend to handle everything from marketing to theatrical, streaming, or TV releases. A film with this many accolades and this much audience interest is usually a hit with major US distributors—but not No Other Land.

Securing a distribution partner is never a guarantee, especially for provocative political documentaries. There are some exceptions: in recent years, Warner Bros. Pictures acquired theatrical rights to Navalny, a documentary about the late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, while PBS Distribution secured rights to 20 Days in Mariupol, about the war in Ukraine. Both were Oscar winners.

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Distributors aren’t always essential; streaming platforms sometimes license films directly from the producers or other rights holders. But in general, without a distribution company or partner, films have limited paths to audiences beyond festivals. Filmmakers might fail to secure distribution deals for any number of reasons: they lack industry connections, the film is seen as unprofitable, the offer isn’t lucrative enough, there are reputational concerns (such as accusations against the filmmaker), or the film’s message is considered risky.

No Other Land had its world premiere at the Berlinale four months after the October 7 attacks and Israel’s unsparing military onslaught on Gaza, which many human rights groups, UN experts, and Holocaust and genocide scholars have since called a genocide, making an already sensitive subject explosive. Critics have called No Other Land everything from antisemitic to Palestinian (and even liberal Zionist) propaganda. After the Berlinale win, Abraham received death threats, and in an X post, Berlin mayor Kai Wegner criticized what happened at the awards ceremony as unacceptable, adding that “antisemitism” has no place in his city.

In a January interview with Variety, Abraham called the absence of a major US distributor “completely political,” adding that the film’s pointed critique of Israel likely made it too controversial for major players. There is “much less space for this kind of criticism” in the US, he said. The filmmakers ended up self-distributing their film, working with mTuckman Media, a theatrical booking company, to secure some theatrical releases.

But lacking mainstream distribution in the US and Canada made No Other Land only more buzzworthy. Filmgoers in Canada called and messaged their local theatres asking about screenings, and the Oscar win ramped up demand. “I think any film, regardless of the subject matter, that had that sort of profile would draw attention,” says Julian Carrington, founder and programmer of For Viola, a BIPOC-focused free community screening series named after human rights icon Viola Desmond. “I think there is this broader sense of almost like an injustice of not being able to see it, the sense of it being somehow withheld,” he says, “so there is the extra impetus to reshare it, to tell people to come out and see it.”

Carrington founded For Viola in 2020 to engage audiences he believed were underserved by institutions like Hot Docs at the time. Having worked at Hot Docs and TIFF, and currently as the executive director of the Documentary Organization of Canada, he’s well placed to spot what’s missing from the repertoire. Together with Hot Docs, he secured an Ontario Arts Council grant in March 2024 that enabled him to curate independently: Hot Docs provided the space but did not influence his programming decisions. No Other Land appeared on his radar after he saw reports that Germany’s then minister of state for culture walked back her applause for the Berlinale speech, claiming she had intended to support only the Israeli filmmaker. “I just thought, Well, I have to see this,” says Carrington. He finally did at a documentary film festival in Sheffield, in the UK.

No Other Land can be streamed in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere, but it remains unavailable on streaming platforms in Canada and the US.

That spring, No Other Land was conspicuously absent from the Hot Docs Festival lineup. Although Carrington wasn’t on staff then, he says he heard from people at Hot Docs that there was heightened scrutiny around Palestinian films in particular at the time. A source with inside knowledge confirmed that other films did not go through the same vetting process as those linked to Palestine. This source also said that the leadership’s decision not to screen No Other Land as part of the 2024 festival, despite multiple appeals by staff, set a dangerous precedent.

In a letter obtained by the Toronto Star, dated February 20 of that year, ten members of the festival’s international programming team told the board the workplace had become one of “chaos, isolation, mistrust and disrespect” under then artistic director Hussain Currimbhoy. In March, Currimbhoy stepped down for “personal reasons,” and several programming staff quit; the source says the fraught discussion around No Other Land added to existing frustrations and helped galvanize the walkout.

In an email this past July, a Hot Docs representative said they were not aware of a special screening process for films related to Palestine, including No Other Land, leading up to the 2024 festival. “If unique conversations about this film took place amongst the programming team at the time, we can’t speak to those as most of those individuals are no longer with the organization,” the email stated.

In May 2024, Hot Docs announced it would shut down for three months to address cash flow issues and regroup for strategic planning. There was no mention of how it would tackle concerns about the festival’s political influence over its programming.

Months later, under new leadership and with fresh plans to reopen, Hot Docs reached out to Carrington, asking if he wanted to continue the For Viola series and resume their partnership. “And I was like, ‘Great, No Other Land—that’s what we’re gonna show,’” he says.

Carrington announced the free screening on the For Viola Instagram page on January 1. By the end of that month, No Other Land ’s festival circuit would have reached its end, with no major North American distributor in sight. Within a couple of weeks, 600 tickets were booked. Other grassroots groups and individuals started looking into organizing screenings. Among them is Charlie (who asked to use a pseudonym), a member of Jews Say No to Genocide. They had been to Masafer Yatta with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence in the summer of 2024 to document the aggression against Palestinians by Israeli settlers and the Israel Defense Forces. During their ten-day trip, Charlie spent time with Ballal, one of No Other Land ’s makers.

Charlie saw the film at TIFF and found it “obviously devastating.” They knew there was an appetite to see it in their own community, so they organized a screening that would double as a fundraiser for Masafer Yatta. It took place the same weekend in February as For Viola’s, but at the University of Toronto’s Innis College. Charlie and Carrington supported each other, the latter inviting Charlie to speak about the fundraiser at the For Viola screening. Their combined efforts that weekend helped Charlie raise nearly $25,000.

Independent cinemas typically have to wait for chain theatres’ run to end before they can show festival darlings. But there was no waiting time for No Other Land. It was a jackpot for indie theatres.

TIFF Lightbox, the venue for the organization’s year-round programming, launched a theatrical run of the film, which ran until April 24, likely in response to the Oscar nomination and win. In early March, Halifax’s indie cinema Carbon Arc booked No Other Land for four screenings—which is more than their usual theatrical run. All four sold out right away (their capacity is seventy-two seats). They added five more, which sold out too. In an interview at the end of March, Carsten Knox, a journalist and a volunteer programmer at Carbon Arc, said that “people are still messaging us, and we’ve had inquiries from other independent cinemas who want to show it in Nova Scotia.”

“It’s selling out pretty much every time we screen it.”

Cinéma Public, a Montreal-based film theatre project, has distributor status in Quebec—which it uses to screen films that aren’t otherwise accessible. Once it secured the rights to No Other Land, indie cinemas across Quebec reached out to coordinate screenings. By the end of June, Cinéma Public had held forty-six showings at its own theatre. “It’s selling out pretty much every time we screen it,” said programming and technical manager Guillaume Potvin in March. “It surpassed our best hit ever.” But he says the biggest surprise was the range of interest, especially from schools keen on bringing students to see the film.

For Rachel Fox, senior programmer at Vancouver’s Rio Theatre, showing No Other Land was a smart business decision. Keeping the lights on is a priority for independent cinemas, and these types of films are what audiences go to indie cinemas for. Screening films that further conversations, whether about filmmaking or context, is what arts exhibitors are meant to do—to show art that fights cynicism, she says. “It is imperative for us, in a civilized society, that we examine works of art like this so that we engage and we dialogue and have conversations about art.”

Michael Tuckman, founder of the theatrical booking company that No Other Land worked with, said that, as of March, the film was shown or set to play in about twenty-five independent cinemas across Canada. He added that, at the time, its gross box office yield across North America was over $2 million (US). This is a remarkable feat for a documentary, says Sonya Yokota William, director of the Network of Independent Canadian Exhibitors. But indie cinemas can’t be expected to show No Other Land indefinitely. To reach the widest possible audience, the film needs access to a broadcaster or a streamer.

Reflecting on No Other Land ’s ongoing lack of major distributor support in North America, Fox says that, from a programming perspective, it can sometimes feel like “we also live in a world of ‘you’re damned if you do [screen the film], and you’re damned if you don’t.’”

Palestinian films and films about Palestine are exceptionally difficult to make: from financing to distribution, it is never simple or straightforward. Adra, Abraham, Ballal, and Szor made the film without any prior agreement or financing from a network or distributor. They used some of the footage to apply for support from a Belgium-based film organization, Close Up, which linked them to Antipode Films, an independent Norwegian production company that helped them secure grants and financial support. Because the Palestinian co-directors couldn’t leave the West Bank (while their Israeli counterparts could move freely), the film had to be edited in Masafer Yatta, with limited electricity and equipment that was frequently confiscated by IDF raids.

Days ahead of the film’s premiere at the New York Film Festival in September, Adra posted on X. “Things only got worse since we made it,” he wrote. “Today my dad was kidnapped by soldiers, blindfolded, tied for hours inside a settlement for no reason.”

A day later, David Ehrlich, IndieWire ’s top movie critic, wrote on X: “Someone/anyone step up,” tagging distribution companies Mubi, Janus Films, and Kino Lorber, among others. Watermelon Pictures, a Chicago-based distributor that specializes in work by Palestinian and other underrepresented filmmakers, replied, “This is exactly what Watermelon Pictures is here for. Our stories deserve to be seen #FromTheRiverToTheScreen.” And yet No Other Land is not part of their catalogue. In an email to The Walrus, a Watermelon Pictures spokesperson expressed support for the film but did not explain why the distributor hasn’t picked it up.

Basel Adra, left, and Yuval Abraham at the Berlin Film Festival in 2024César / WikicommonsThe film has sparked controversy even among some Palestinians. The production of No Other Land—not its content—violated Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions guidelines, according to a statement by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, in part due to its connection to Close Up, which the PACBI had previously criticized for not treating Israel as “a regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.” The PACBI’s statement about No Other Land also says its Israeli filmmakers “are not on record supporting the comprehensive rights of the Palestinian people.” (According to the PACBI, the filmmakers have since acknowledged the genocide in Gaza and Israel as the aggressor.)

In March, the mayor of Miami Beach, Steven Meiner, threatened to evict indie theatre O Cinema and withdraw its grant funding after it screened No Other Land. Meiner claimed the film was “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents.” Pressure from hundreds of artists and activists led to opposition among other elected officials, forcing him to withdraw the threats.

Days later, in Masafer Yatta, Ballal was attacked by an Israeli settler and armed soldiers before being detained. Abraham publicly criticized the Academy for its silence on Ballal’s attack; the Academy cited its respect for “unique viewpoints.” After being released the next day, Ballal told the Associated Press that, while in detention, where he was also beaten, he heard soldiers saying his name along with the word “Oscar.”

In April, Adra spoke at a press conference ahead of the film’s screening at the European Parliament in Brussels: “If you want to ask, ‘What’s the situation today on the ground?’ it’s just simply like double of what you are seeing in No Other Land.” Two months later, masked Israeli troops blocked media access to Masafer Yatta. And in July, Awdah Hathaleen, an activist who’d helped make No Other Land, was killed by an Israeli settler.

Partway through the documentary, after a day of protest that was interrupted by Israeli stun grenades, Abraham tells Adra that his online coverage of Masafer Yatta hasn’t been getting enough views. Adra, who was threatened with arrest earlier that day, tells him, “It’s always like that. I feel you’re a little enthusiastic.” He reminds Abraham that things won’t change overnight. “This has been going on for decades. . . . It requires patience.”

In early June, an open letter was addressed to a Toronto District School Board trustee expressing concern over a school’s decision to block a student screening of No Other Land. Now signed by over 250 parents and community members, the letter detailed how, just weeks earlier, the school’s administration had approved a field trip to the Nova Exhibition—an installation that commemorates the lives lost in Israel on October 7. Organized during school hours, the exhibition trip was described as an “identity-affirming experience” to help students process a traumatic event. In contrast, the film screening required additional vetting, after which it was deemed potentially divisive and ultimately cancelled.

“As parents and community members, we find this response unclear and troubling,” the letter reads. “We believe this difference in treatment reflects a subjective judgement about which student experiences are considered ‘political’ and which are not. The result is that some students are supported in sharing their narratives, while others are left feeling silenced or dismissed.”

No Other Land can be streamed in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere, but it remains unavailable on streaming platforms in Canada and the US. And it won’t be the last Palestinian film to face such hurdles.

On May 23, For Viola organized a Hot Docs Cinema screening of The Encampments, a 2025 documentary chronicling the student protest and Palestine solidarity movement at Columbia University. Mahmoud Khalil, the unlawfully detained Columbia graduate, US permanent resident, and Palestinian activist, is featured in the film alongside Sueda Polat, then a human rights graduate student, and a group of Jewish student allies. At the time, that was the only planned showing in Toronto.

The film premiered in Copenhagen in March and later screened in cities across the US, setting a new box office record for the highest per theatre average for a documentary opening. In Canada, the film showed at Metro Cinema in Edmonton, the VIFF Centre in Vancouver, and Cinéma Moderne in Montreal, among other venues.

In a speech to a packed theatre before the Toronto screening, Carrington said that exhibitors in the city—he refrained from naming specific institutions—have been hesitant to screen or otherwise platform The Encampments. “I wasn’t always so confident that I would get to share it with you,” he said. “I hope that your clear enthusiasm will lead to more opportunities for folks in Toronto to experience it.”

At the end of the film, directors Kei Pritsker and Michael T Workman urged the audience to help broaden its reach by requesting screenings from local cultural institutions and independent cinemas. The crowd responded with applause. Enough of them sent emails that, in early June, Hot Docs added two more screenings.

The post The Film on Palestine Everyone’s Talking About but Few Can See first appeared on The Walrus.