There's a big Oscars win we should be talking about — and it's not Anora
Film critics Eli Glasner, Rad Simonpillai and Sarah-Tai Black discuss the documentary No Other Land
No Other Land just won an Oscar, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a place to watch it anywhere right now.
The documentary feature film is set in the West Bank. It is a collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, who have documented the gradual destruction of the region.
While it has been lauded by critics and audiences on the festival circuit since its premiere over a year ago, it has had trouble finding distribution partners to share it with more theatres and streaming platforms.
Today on Commotion, film critics Eli Glasner, Sarah-Tai Black and Rad Simonpillai join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss whether this win will change the film's reach, and other highlights from this year's Oscars.
We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.
Elamin: I want to talk about a moment that really stuck out for me from last night's Oscars: the acceptance speech by [Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra,] the Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers of No Other Land, because they won for best documentary feature film…. Eli, your thoughts on that moment? Because it felt like a really big surprise in the room when No Other Land won.
Eli: It was a surprise. This was a show that tried to keep politics at bay. Even the opening monologue, while hilarious, was very safe and not exactly pointed when it comes to the effects of the new administration in Washington. The fact that the filmmakers called out directly the Trump administration, I think, is so powerful. Even if you go beyond that film, in the documentary world at large, we've seen a chilling effect. We have seen not just No Other Land, but other films with politics that aren't being seen, that distributors are afraid to pick up.
One of the many beautiful things about this film is that relationship at its core — of Basel and Yuval, who are Palestinian and Israeli. As the film just lets them be in that space, you see that they're not that dissimilar. But of course, one has freedoms and the other doesn't. And it's a film like that, that took the time to show us those connections and how, as he said so eloquently: they are intertwined. But while the film shows us that, we can't see the film in so many places. It has luckily been distributed in parts of Canada. I believe it is playing right now in Toronto. Not so much in the United States; they've been self-distributing it. The fact that we need to get to the point where the movie won an Oscar, and now maybe it will be on screens in America, just shows you the state of distribution right now, and the challenges that important films such as this really face.
Elamin: A couple things really stuck out for me, Sarah-Tai, about the win for No Other Land. Number one, Guy Pearce was wearing a "Free Palestine" pin yesterday, shaking hands with Basel as he was walking up. Basel Adra using the stage in that moment to talk about ethnic cleansing in Palestine explicitly, which you don't hear that often on an Oscar stage. And then you get to the reality that Eli just highlighted, which is that still, right now, to this day, No Other Land does not have a distributor in the United States. Do you see a moment like this one transforming the ways that No Other Land is being distributed?
Sarah-Tai: I mean, I hope so. I really do. But I can't help but feel kind of stuck in a pessimism in terms of the industry's political cowardice. The fact that this film doesn't have any distribution at all when it's not that politically radical of a film — it's a film that's advocating a two-state solution. It's a film where you see a "both sides" approach. And that's not to denigrate at all the Palestinian filmmakers and people we hear and see from and witness. But there is a reason this film got nominated and not a film directed only by Palestinians. That's not a coincidence…. So, I remain confused, but not surprised that it doesn't have distribution, given the fact that it is a very liberal film. This isn't agitprop. It's very much of its time, for better and for worse.
Elamin: You mean liberal as in, at its core, it's not a radical film. At its core, it is a relatively centrist, liberal film.
Sarah-Tai: Yeah.... But I do hope this opens the door for No Other Land in terms of more distribution opportunities, as well as for more Palestinian directors.
Elamin: Rad, I think the reception to No Other Land feels completely out of step with the ways it has been celebrated, both by critics and now winning this Oscar. There's obviously a distance between the audience that is craving No Other Land and the systems that are willing to distribute it.
Rad: Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to repeat what Sarah-Tai Black said about the cowardice in this industry, that they won't touch this movie even though it's been winning prizes for well over a year now. The prizes began when it premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival; it won the top prize there. And the fact that this film is so urgent, so emotional, so powerful and clearly — you saw the response to the film in that room. It got a standing ovation. And so it's a powerful moment to have the Palestinian filmmaker take the stage and say, like, "You guys are contributing to the violence that Palestinians are facing, to this ethnic cleansing and all of these things." So that was a powerful moment to me. I don't know when everyone else is going to have the opportunity to catch up to this movie, but it's important that they do.
You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Panel produced by Ty Callender.
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