Commentaires des utilisateurs

No Other Land is one of the most important documentaries of this present moment -- it is a shame (but not a surprise) that it's become somewhat difficult to find/see anywhere.

Like 20 Days in Mariupol did with Russia's 2022 siege of Mariupol in Ukraine, it speaks to us bluntly right from the eye of the storm, that storm being the Israeli occupation of Palestine (chiefly the demolition of the filmmaker's home region in the West Bank, in this case). It may seem infantile to use terms like "pure evil", but there's basically no other way to describe some of what we witness in this footage.

It also involves a fascinating friendship, as Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who documents the gradual ruination of his home in Masafer Yatta on video, finds a connection with an Israeli journalist named Yuval Abraham, who wishes to help him, even as it becomes clear he can never quite understand his struggle. Nevertheless, their material became this film; both are credited as directors and writers alongside Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, who is also Israeli.

Why this film would be inconvenient for Israel-sympathizers is obvious (when the film began to receive awards recognition, the IDF promptly surrounded Adra's home). But its central friendship -- and the fact that the friend in question demonstrably agreed to help get this movie made -- likely makes it inconvenient for those who use this conflict as an excuse for anti-Semitism, asserting that any Israeli person or even any Jewish person is fair game to brand a monster, if not outright kill.

Fact is, there are plenty like Abraham and Szor. For as much as Zionists like to insist that all "true" Jewish people ARE, in fact, on board with the whole Zionism thing (and in so doing they effectively agree with the aforementioned anti-Semites), there are several Jewish people and indeed Israeli citizens who are aghast at the idea that their ancestors survived The Holocaust only for the descendants to rework "Never again" into "Never again... to us".

I don't know the route to a happy Middle East any more than the next person; that it will never be achieved if Israel continues on its current path seems certain. Defenders of the Israeli state dislike the use of the term "settler-colonialism" to describe what has been happening, but it's hard to find an alternative for the bleak reality shown in this film, a collaboration between a Palestinian facing eviction from the family land in the West Bank and a sympathetic Israeli. That collaboration is perhaps the only heartening thing in an otherwise deeply depressing, but important, film. Tellingly, it was all shot before autumn 2023; it's hard to believe that anything has got better since then.

Incredibly hard to watch, but vital. The viewpoint we in North America are not allowed to see. Documentation of the devastation wrought by modern day colonialism, which needs to remembered, and recognized. History is being made and it the film makers are telling the side of the oppressed, who have been ignored for too long. This film is a complete embodiment of what the people need to see and hear. The truth in this movie is unwavering and its depicted with live footage throughout the entire documentary, leaving no other conclusions to be made but the one that is in front of your eyes. Captivating for any fan of real life documentaries, this is as real as it gets.

I expected more from this film, but I feel like I've seen better documentaries on the subject of the Palestine-Israel conflict. I think this documentary has had incredible publicity compared to other excellent productions. For example, Arte. TV made a documentary report in 2023 titled West Bank: The War of the Colonies, which I found brutal, heartbreaking, and very human. If you're hoping to see the best documentary about the colonies, I recommend looking at other film offerings.

One minute you're in your home, the next minute it's demolished by The Israeli Army, and further, you're not allowed to drive, and told it's illegal to be on the land, that reality is captured on film.

Where to begin, first off, it fully deserves the many accolades, it's not just a fascinating storyline and a daring piece of journalism, but it's actually a terrifically well made documentary, it's impressive.

There are no grey areas or 'misreading' of events here, it doesn't really matter which side of the fence you sit on, and whether you lean one way or the other, it will hammer home just how appallingly The Israeli Army behaved, against people who literally had nothing, and could offer zero credible resistance. You see what it is to live under occupation.

Several times it had me in tears, if you're not moved by it, I'd suggest there's something seriously wrong.

There are some astonishing moments, the scenes between Basel and Yuval are fascinating, two incredibly brave men.

Revealing, powerful and sobering, don't go in expecting any happy resolutions, as we all know this painful, excruciating war marches on.

This will make every liquid in your body boil with anger and rage, it's obscene. Please someone find a way to end this.

10/10.

I usually steer clear of political discussions - not because I lack opinions, quite the opposite - but because even those who claim to be open-minded and well-educated often struggle to engage in meaningful conversations without turning them into hostile debates.

Too often, discussions dissolve into battles of empty rhetoric rather than genuine exchanges of ideas.

That said, "No Other Land" is not an easy documentary to review. Created by a group of Palestinian and Israeli activist filmmakers, it captures the destruction of Masafer Yatta, a cluster of villages in the southern West Bank.

Once home to generations, this land has been transformed into an Israeli military training ground, rendering its residents' presence - and even the act of rebuilding their demolished homes - illegal.

Filmmakers Basel Adra, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, Palestinian director and farmer Hamdan Ballal, and Israeli cinematographer Rachel Szor present the harsh reality with raw honesty.

There's no embellishment, no forced emotional manipulation - just the infuriating truth. The film doesn't tell us anything new about war crimes, occupation, or the fight for Palestinian sovereignty. Instead, it shows us what those words truly mean for the people living them every day.

Why is this documentary so important? Oscar or no Oscar, "No Other Land" is perhaps the most authentic depiction of life under occupation - a stark contrast to the shocking, sensationalized videos that flood social media.

Not that those clips aren't real, but let's be honest - most of us have no idea what life on the ground actually looks like. We aren't there, on the frontlines, facing the devastation firsthand.

This film strips away the spectacle of war, the manufactured narratives, and the distant outrage. Instead, it presents the quiet resilience of a people fighting to preserve what little remains of their homes, culture, and dignity.

No dramatization, no spectacle - just silence, destruction, and the unbearable weight of injustice.

Perhaps it's easier to look away, to stay in a comfort zone of selective outrage while ignoring the real crimes happening in plain sight.

But "No Other Land" makes looking away impossible.

If this documentary is still playing at a theater near you, don't hesitate - go see it.

Be ready to witness a raw, unfiltered reality that rarely makes it to mainstream screens. Let it challenge you, make you uncomfortable, and most importantly, make you think about the truth this collective is revealing.

No Other Land was a quieter kind of angry than I was expecting, but I think that approach is the kind of thing that could well change a person's mind on the whole ordeal if they were to seek this out. I guess with documentaries on subjects like this, getting someone who already feels a certain way to watch this when they might want to otherwise resist an alternate point of view is the difficult part, but there's still a lot of madness in the world, and the approaches that have been taken to sway people haven't really been working.

So it's not that No Other Land reinvents the documentary genre as a whole, but I think it has a distinctive way of presenting its central thesis. It's not peaceful, but there is a quietness to it that will likely lead some people to reflect on what they might've thought about before. Again, if they were to watch No Other Land in the first place. That's a whole other obstacle. But the approach here is more than sound and it's quietly powerful, and I'd hope that's an ultimately effective way to do it.

This did have some slower moments as far as the editing goes, but there were other sequences that had fantastic editing, and there's some striking imagery in here, too. I don't think it's a perfect documentary but it is an important one ("important" is a word I'm sure every review of this has used, oh well). Watch it regardless of how you feel about the conflict in question and I think it will help, so long as you go in open-minded. It's not necessarily subtle (and it shouldn't be), but it isn't aggressive, and if it does change minds - which I hope it can - I think that might be the reason why.

Incredibly hard to watch, but vital. The viewpoint we in North America are not allowed to see. Documentation of the devastation wrought by modern day colonialism, which needs to remembered, and recognized. History is being made and it the film makers are telling the side of the oppressed, who have been ignored for too long! Please do what you can to see this film. When the powers that be don't want you to see something, you know it is something that needs attention. Beautifully shot, devastating footage of atrocious settler actions, tearing down schools, children crying, violence being committed against villagers, it is incredible how many atrocious acts the filmmakers were able to record.

It is the summer of 2019. Up to 1000 Palestinians are being evicted from their villages after an Israeli Supreme Court ruling. The Israeli military destroys the villagers' buildings and forces them off the land. To prevent them from returning, the Israelis call it a military training ground and even cement in local wells. Some of the Palestinians decide to stay in nearby ancient cave homes.

This is solid on-the-ground documentary reporting. It does need to be clearer at the beginning. I didn't know right away that this is a documentary. That's not a big deal. The much bigger deal is the court case. I would like to know more about it. Did the villagers not have papers? I would like to know who these judges are or the arguments being debated. Without all that, I have to assume the right or wrong of it. This is missing half of the back story.

"...He's a journalist that wants to write about the demolitions. - But does anyone actually care to read about it? - Honestly, not many."

And just like that, No Other Land became my favorite Oscar winner from the last ceremony, as this film may be one of the most significant and best documentary works for humanity in the 21st century. A joint effort by Palestinians and Israelis, led by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamadan Billal, and Rachel Szor, set out to document the heartbreaking events in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinian villages are illegally and forcibly demolished, homes and schools disappear, and farmers' land is seized-leaving them with caves as their only refuge in the land where they were born. Exile or a bullet-those are their remaining options, all for the purpose of creating space for IDF military training grounds...

A film that exposes the greatest human disgrace of our time, revealing how deeply evil, oppression, fascism, and racism can take root in the human heart, but also how vast, yet powerless, human suffering can be. It also reminds us that, without a tyrannical regime, a life of mutual solidarity, respect, and friendship is not only possible but natural. This is something that manifests a cry for freedom, for our attention... a cry for something that should be a fundamental right of every decent human being.

Without exception, you all must watch this.

*No Other Land* is a documentary that feels less like a polished film and more like a raw wound projected on screen - urgent, unfiltered, and impossible to ignore. Its political message is searing: the injustices of daily life under occupation are not abstract notions but embodied realities, etched in faces, gestures, and silences. The camera's closeness rescues its subjects from abstraction, offering moments of heartbreaking humanity amid systemic violence. And yet this very urgency exposes its limits: in privileging testimony over cinematic refinement, the film sometimes stumbles in rhythm, veering between piercing immediacy and stretches that feel less intentional. But perhaps this imperfection is part of the truth it seeks to convey - a reflection of a fractured world where coherence itself is a luxury. The result is cinema that bears witness rather than dazzles, choosing truth over polish, urgency over perfection. What lingers is not formal elegance but the weight of experience: a sorrow that unsettles and a call to conscience that refuses to be ignored. Best suited for viewers willing to trade aesthetic mastery for raw moral force, it remains a work of undeniable power, even within its flaws.

I have watched many West Bank documentaries both pro Palestine and pro Israel. And many neutral ones. They typically are fun enough with not much new info.

And now we have this? I wouldn't really call it a documentary as most people understand it. There are no explanations and not much info. We just follow people around. We seldom know where they are or who is there. The scenes are randomly put together. Much is desert or grey houses. All looks the same.

If the goal is to make IDF look bad sure they achieved it. But then most documentaries from Israel do exactly the same even the ones made by Israelis. It's not new nor groundbreaking. It's a boring style where half the time you read subs trying to understand what is going on.

A building gets demolished. Why? What year? What day? Who knows. We just see it happen and are supposed to feel angry about it because people scream and shout and are sad and angry. Is the building illegal? Did they actually get surprised or did IDF come by randomly? You may assume one or the other, but with no answers it's hard to say how much of what we see is a planned protest or just a natural reaction to what is happening day to day.

I guess if you hate one side you may interpret all events as legit and random with one side being totally innocent victims. Yet when they put this many events into the documentary some are bound to be misleading unless you tell us what lead up to it and they never do. Palestinians here are presented as unemployed losers who have no dreams, ideas, plans, or motivation. Is that how they want to be seen? Or will they find this offensive?

There is no other land and there should be no need for one.

A tragic story of greed and inhumanity that has been falling on deaf years for decades because one country is powerful and has powerful friends and allies and the other one has nothing to offer, therefore nobody cares what happens to it outside of a few minutes or days of noteworthy news and public outcry, which also tends to die down quickly as people go about their daily business and forget about the sorrows of people in a faraway land whom they'll never meet. That too is a story as old as time and history never seems to teach us much. When the weak become powerful they forget what it was like and they become oppressors without a second thought.

What a tame word "settler" is. It doesn't say anything, when in fact it means occupier.

An enthralling documentary that is a must see. Now it's very difficult to write anything meaningful here, without being politically biased or showing allegiance to one side or another, however it is a film to watch with an open mind. And I encourage you to watch this film. It follows two journalists, both from different sides of the fence, but without dichotomy. The story of Yuval and Basel is told cleanly, without contradiction, and with first hand video footage taken in the West Bank. This is footage during 2022, and follows the two unlikely friends as they build an understanding of each other's worlds. Family relationships are witnessed, along with events that mark history.