No Other Land review – a microcosm of Palestinian resistance

Art is political, and none more transparently so than documentary No More Land. Presented at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, the film’s co-director Yuval Abraham explained its premise: “We stand before you together. I am Israeli; Basel [Adra] is Palestinian. […] In two days we will go back to a land where we are not equal. This apartheid has to end.” Abraham was not alone in protesting the Israeli occupation, but while this recent wave of campaigning was sparked by the accelerated violence that has occurred after the Hamas attack of October 7th, what makes this film poignant is that it covers happenings within the West Bank up until right before that fateful moment.

Demolition orders have become commonplace in Masafer Yatta, Adra’s neighbourhood in the West Bank. The Israeli government has decreed that this land, farmed by generations of Palestinians for a century, must be bulldozed into a military training ground. Without warning, any of the families could be forced to flee and watch helplessly as their homes crumple like paper. Like Batman, Basel rushes to film the carnage as soon as he receives a call. As we watch, one girl hyperventilates and whispers, “No, please,” – yet another childhood is crushed, and the image is added to the list of crimes that this state should be held accountable for.

“We welcome anyone who stands with us,” a resident states as he welcomes Yuval, an Israeli journalist, into his home for ginger coffee. Yuval gets stuck in, helping lay the cement to rebuild a home in the middle of the night. His new friends tease him on his slow pace. Fresh-faced and typing up articles on every demolition, Basel jokes that Yuval eagerly wants to end the occupation in 10 days. Meanwhile Basel’s memories of a sheep farming youth are tainted by the arrest of his father. Two decades later, he treads the same path, leading protests three times a week.

The claustrophobia of the diminishing West Bank is emphasised throughout. While Yuval can move freely across the country, we don’t see his cushier life. The camera instead remains with Basel, depressed and doomscrolling on his phone in a half-built house, law degree and accompanying youthful optimism gathering dust. One frustrating detail is the halting of a demolition of a school and its street, only because Tony Blair visited the protesters. Clearly Western powers can prevent the carnage, but that requires allyship like Yuval’s to cross the pond into the corridors of power.

While Basel runs towards the danger with his lens trained on the colonisers, the act of filming makes him a target, so he lives a precarious existence trained simultaneously towards and away from the guns. It is terrifying work, and briefly stepping into his shoes, the shaking camera blurrily filming the ground. There is no relief in the final frames of the film, only more destruction. The battle is uphill and it rages on. No Other Land exemplifies the bravery and patience of activists and journalists. The occupation started over 70 years ago, and together, this unlikely pair capture its inhumanity with humanity.

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