Last night’s Oscars made history with the film No Other Land winning Best Documentary Feature, marking the first-ever Academy Award for a Palestinian filmmaker, co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal. The two accepted the award on stage alongside their Israeli co-directors, journalist Yuval Abraham and filmmaker Rachel Szor.
No Other Land’s win is additionally noteworthy given the difficulty it’s faced reaching an audience in the United States: Despite being the year’s highest-grossing Oscar-nominated documentary, it has yet to find an American distributor, which the filmmakers have categorized as “completely political.”
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Abraham’s speech highlighted the dynamic of Israelis and Palestinians working together on the project, echoed in a “directors’ statement” released alongside the film: “We’re making this film together, a Palestinian-Israeli group of activists and filmmakers, because we want to stop the ongoing expulsion of the community of Masafer Yatta, and resist the reality of Apartheid we were born into – from opposite, unequal sides.”
The film centers on Israeli destruction and displacement in Adra’s hometown of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. In February 2025, Adra posted videos on X/Twitter of demolition of homes and water tanks in Masafer Yatta. Just days ago, Amnesty International condemned the “imminent risk” of “state-backed settler attacks, as well as home demolitions, restrictions on access to land and illegal settlement expansion by the Israeli authorities” in one of the 12 Palestinian communities that make up Masafer Yatta. And according to CNN, Masafer Yatta residents were attacked by Israeli settlers “accompanied by Israeli forces” hours before No Other Land’s win at the Oscars.
During his speech, Abraham also condemned the United States’ role in obstructing peace. Since taking office, Donald Trump has loudly proclaimed his intentions to take over Gaza, blocking Palestinians from returning, which Adra and Abraham have previously called “shocking,” “irresponsible” and “immoral,” criticizing Trump’s plans as ethnic cleansing.
Outlets including Slate noted that the film’s acceptance speech was among the only political moments of the awards ceremony. Read the full speech below.
Basel Adra: Thank you to the Academy for the award. It’s such a big honor for the four of us and everybody who supported us for this documentary.
About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing violence, home demolitions, forced displacement that my community, Masafer Yatta, is facing every day. “No Other Land” reflects the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.
Yuval Abraham: We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end; the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed.
