No Other Land
Rachel Szor, Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra & Hamdan Bilal / Palestine / 2024 / International Premiere / 95 min
The alliance between a young Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank and an Israeli journalist provides a unique and human insight into a decades-old conflict, as the two fight against the forced expulsion of the Masafer Yatta community. A film created by a Palestinian-Israeli collective.
An unusual alliance between a Palestinian activist and an Israeli journalist is at the centre of ‘No Other Land’, which brings together the threads of the long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Basel is Palestinian and has spent his young life documenting how Israeli soldiers have spearheaded the settlers’ illegal takeover of land in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, where he lives. Yuval is a journalist from Israel and has been covering the situation from inside and outside for years. Their friendship is uneven – Basel lives under military occupation, while Yuval can come and go as he pleases – but after initial scepticism, Yuval is warmly welcomed by Basel’s friends and family. However, the heavily armed Israeli soldiers increasingly see him as an adversary as they clear the way for the bulldozers that roll in to destroy people’s homes before their eyes. But where there is friendship, there is hope, and the scenes between Basel and Yuval give us a much-needed moment of humanity in a film co-created by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists.