No Other Land is the most important documentary of our time | movie review

A scene from No Other Land. Courtesy of NYFF.

NYFF 2024 | No Other Land follows a Palestinian activist as he documents the destruction of his community in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

No Other Land follows a young man in is Israeli-occupied West Bank who tries to take power back the only way he can: telling his story. The deeply unsettling relevancy aside, it's a feeling and empathetic doc that doesn't mince words but also allows for moments of humanity. A testament to the human spirit, the power of activism and friendship. It doesn't supply any answers. But maybe it's an answer itself.

★★★★★ / ✸ Best of 2024

No Other Land had its U.S. premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival. It is seeking distribution.

“We have no other land.” That's what a mother cries as she wants helplessly as Israeli soldiers protect a bulldozer as it rips into her home in the West Bank, the center of the Israel-Palestine conflict at the time. Her daughter sits in the sand nearby. Her expression is conflicted. There's confusion and fear but mostly it feels that the camera captures her innocence. The cameraman is Basel Adra, a Palestinian lawyer, journalist and activist from Masafer Yatta. That's where he films the destruction of the only land that he has called his home.

Filmed between 2019 and October 2023, No Other Land is as much a documentary and piece of reporting as it is a personal diary of Basel's experience of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. At the start of the documentary, he'd already been documenting and posting his videos online for nearly a decade. You wouldn't know by the way he springs into action whenever he gets a call that another village in the rural region is being demolished by Israeli military forces. When he questions the soldiers, he gets the same answer: that they are illegally housed in a military training area.

It's a pattern we watch several times through both Basel's camera and the camera of his Israeli co-directors Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham and Palestinian photographer Hamdan Ballal. Yet somehow, it doesn't become easier to stomach it each time. That's due to its seemingly unstoppable repetition and the filmmaker's focus on the people being displaced. Their cries coming from such a gutterall human place that even the sound of it is enough to send chills through your body. Even then, the documentary is adorned save for a few voiceovers from Basel offering his own personal experiences of the occupation through childhood and recent years. They allow the annihilation to speak for itself.

Through the years, however, the scenes of violence are intercut with moments of pseudo-normalcy and peace among the people of Masafer Yatta. In one throughline, we follow a displaced family settling into a cave, the only place they've found that they're able to live in some sort of peace—they aren't allowed to leave the West Bank even though Israelis are free to move across the border. The family is Harun Abu Aram's, an activist who we see shot during one eviction. For years, we watch his mother care for him in the “dirty cave” while begging whoever will listen to allow him access to a clean place to heal. However, those devastating scenes are balanced with her young granddaughter watching a show on a TV precariously mounted to the wall of the cave or asking to play a game on her grandmother's iPhone. Somehow, these flashes of normalcy make it all the more difficult to watch.

Over and over we watch these scenes play. One time it's a school demolished. In another, a farm where chickens are trapped under the rubble. But then, we watch as a group sits around a fire just talking about their day. Perhaps about the destruction, perhaps not. A reminder that this is everyday life. The wonder of No Other Land isn't just the urgency of its story but how true its perspective feels. In an impactful would-be final scene, Basel and Yuval sit outside late at night when Yuval chides, “when are we gonna get married?” The pair joke about it before a solemness falls over them. “Maybe one day” is their answer. No Other Land is a movie of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. A testament to the human spirit, the power of activism and friendship. It doesn't supply any answers. But maybe it's an answer itself.

More movies, less problems

Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

💌 Sign up for our weekly email newsletter with movie recommendations available to stream.

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.