​First UUs View Suppressed, Oscar-Winning Documentary

In 2024 the film No Other Land was awarded the Oscar for best documentary motion picture. Despite the award, it has not been widely seen in the United States because no distributor had the courage to pick it up. (It is now available for individuals to rent via streaming services). In November, the Palestine/Israel Social Justice Team, with the support of SJET, screened the film in the Common Room. 

It was painful to watch. The film shows the forced displacement of the Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta, a group of hamlets with roots in the 19 th century. When Israel decided it would use the area for tank maneuver training, soldiers systematically demolished residents’ homes. They sealed off  Palestinians’ water wells by filling them with cement and bulldozed their children’s playgrounds. Meanwhile Israeli settlers attacked residents, unchecked by nearby Israeli soldiers. During the making of the film two unarmed Palestinians were shot by soldiers, one of whom, Haran, paralyzed from the neck down, dies for lack of medical care.

The suppression of No Other Land is replaying with regard to the new film, The Voice of Hind Rajab. The movie is based on the recordings of a terrified 5-year-old Gazan girl trapped in a car with the dead bodies of her family members speaking with rescue workers. Although an ambulance is eight minutes away two hours pass as rescue workers seek a greenlight for its safe passage, while trying to reassure and calm the
child. In the end the Israelis destroy the ambulance and kill its crew, as well as the girl. In the New York Times M. Gessen noted: “Everywhere in the world this film, shortlisted for the Oscar for best foreign movie, has major distributors – but not in the United States or Israel.”

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