Oscars 2025: Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham calls to “stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people”
During his acceptance speech for ‘Best Documentary Feature’ for the film No Other Land at the Oscars, Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham addressed the governments of the world, specifically the US, to change their policies towards the Israel/Palestine conflict.
“We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together we are stronger,” he said, referencing his co-directors Hamdan Ballal, Basel Adra, and Rachel Szor.
He added: “We see each other. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of October 7th, which must be freed.”
Abraham continued: “When I look at Basel, I see my brother that we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people.
“And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. And you know – Why can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe. There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way.”
Set in the occupied West Bank, No Other Land shows the destruction of the occupied territory by Israeli soldiers and the friendship and alliance that is forged between Adra, a Palestinian activist, and Abraham, an Israeli journalist.
Although it did not find distribution in the US, it has been a favourite of audiences and critics since it debuted at the Berlin Film Festival last year.
Included in Far Out’s list of the 50 best movies of 2024, it was described as” a riveting documentary that doesn’t just demand to be seen; it demands to be discussed at length as a ground-level portrait of the everyday cost incurred by a terrifying depiction of something as seemingly innocuous as people trying to live their lives under the shadow of displacement and devastation.”
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