City Cinema: No Other Land

18A.
Dir: Basel Adra/Hamdan Ballal/Yuval Abraham/Rachel Szor.
Palestine/Norway, 2024, 95 min.
In Arabic, Hebrew and English with English subtitles.

“It’s important to clarify what kind of documentary No Other Land is. It follows the life of Basel Adra, a young Palestinian man living in Masafer Yatta, a collection of 20 small villages in the West Bank. Since childhood, Basel has filmed life in the village. As he’s grown up, he’s been predominantly recording the destruction of his home and those around it. Masafer Yatta is disputed land. Repeatedly, Israeli soldiers come to tear down the houses of Palestinians, stating that they’re illegally built on an Israeli military training ground. From 2019 to 2023, when the film ends, this cycle continues. Every time a home is rebuilt, it’s destroyed… It’s a moving, challenging watch. A girl stands crying as her home is ripped apart by a digger. A family makes a home in a cave, the only solid home available to them. Masked Israeli ‘settlers’ throw rocks at Adra and his family as soldiers watch. A man is shot by a soldier for trying to resist the theft of his electricity generator. There is occasional voiceover for context, but mostly these images are presented without editorialising. They tell their own story, one of endless persistence… There is not an ending because there is not yet an end.” —Olly Richards, Time Out (UK)