‘No Other Land’: Berlin Review

Dir: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor. Palestine/Norway. 2024. 96mins

Few movies premiering in Berlin this 12 months are more likely to be as well timed as No Different Land, a documentary that’s notably pressing and eye-opening within the context of the present Israeli-Palestinian battle. Considerably made earlier than the Hamas assaults of final October, and Israel’s subsequent persevering with assault on Gaza, this reportage by a Palestinian-Israeli collective provides an insider view of a West Financial institution neighborhood resisting a programme of demolition by the Israeli military. No Different Land is certain to draw consideration worldwide after premiering in Berlin’s Panorama part, the place it’s more likely to be hotly mentioned.

 Pressing and eye-opening

The movie incorporates some residence video, notably childhood footage from co-director Basel Adra, in addition to present and archive TV materials – together with photographs of an earlier go to to the West Financial institution by ex-British PM turned Center East peace envoy Tony Blair. However for essentially the most half, No Different Land was shot on video between summer season 2019 and winter 2023 by its 4 administrators, one in all whom, Rachel Szor, is credited as DoP. The central determine and occasional voice-over narrator is Adra, a Palestinian former legislation scholar who grew up in Masafer Yatta, a West Financial institution neighborhood composed of a number of villages. Utilizing household footage, he remembers his childhood there. The son of activists, he remembers the primary time he noticed his father, who runs a fuel station, being arrested.

The movie depicts Masafer Yatta underneath assault from the Israeli military, and typically from armed Israeli settlers. The order has been given – following 22 years of deliberation in an Israeli courtroom – for villages in Masafer Yatta to be demolished and their inhabitants evicted to reclaim the land supposedly for a tank coaching base. Adra is decided to doc and publicise the expulsion, in order to pressure the US to place strain on Israel. His ally on this undertaking is co-director Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist who makes himself a fixture in Masafer Yatta, regardless of scepticism from some locals: “So that you’re a human rights Israeli?” one asks him sardonically.

Footage reveals a grim cyclical sample. Israeli bulldozers transfer in on villages, destroying properties in addition to buildings together with an elementary faculty, even a hen home. The residents rebuild, usually by evening, however the forces return and raze once more, additionally confiscating constructing tools. The demolition programme is supervised by an Israeli recognized solely as ‘Ilan’. Different measures taken embrace reducing off electrical energy and water and banning using vehicles. Issues come to a head when a villager, Harun Abu Aram, is shot by police and left paralysed, sparking demonstrations that themselves come underneath assault; his household has in the meantime moved into one of many space’s many caves.

Handheld cameras make for an usually stunning immediacy, not least when these filming, together with Adra himself, discover themselves confronted by the authorities or by combative settlers who take part with the demolitions (the faces of some troopers are digitally blurred). Occasional dialogue scenes really feel no less than partly staged: we see Adra and Abraham, typically on automotive journeys, voicing their fatigue as occasions proceed, or questioning whether or not their work is having any actual affect.

Abraham laments that few folks learn his stories, main Adra to label him a privileged dilettante: “Such as you need to finish the occupation in ten days.” In one other sequence, a person named Hamdan equally confronts Abraham together with his scepticism: this seems to be co-director Hamdan Ballal, which might make the second look considerably synthetic. However these scenes enable the film-makers to debate what’s at stake, and to appraise the progress and impact of their work.

Occasions start to draw worldwide media consideration however the demolitions proceed, with some villagers transferring away, others staying put – together with the girl whose lament “we now have no different land” provides the documentary its title. A coda notes that the movie correct was accomplished in October 2023, however we hear radio stories that Israel has begun its assault on Gaza. Because the movie ends, Masafer Yatta’s future stays unclear, however it’s onerous to not think about that No Different Land will solely be a prologue to additional stories on the present Palestinian situation, by these film-makers or others.