In a film festival like the one in Berlin which has always also focused on politics in the Panorama section there is today a courageous documentary as it is totally aligned as No Other Land led by Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta in the West Bank who has always fought the mass expulsion of his community by the Israeli occupation.
The film is made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists (Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Adra) and was born, we read in the notes: "in the perspective of an act of creative resistance for greater justice".
In No Other Land is the story of the slow and inexorable uprooting of the villages in his region where the soldiers deployed by the Israeli government are gradually demolishing the houses and driving out their residents.
At a certain point, Basel Adra meets Yuval, an Israeli journalist, who supports him in his efforts.
An unlikely alliance thus develops due to the enormous existential inequality between them: Basel in fact lives under military occupation while Yuval lives freely and without restrictions.
Basel Adra, Palestinian lawyer, journalist and director in the West Bank with his documentaries, has been fighting for years against the mass expulsion by Israel from his community of Masafer Yatta, a group of nineteen Palestinian villages in the south of the West Bank, in Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine, located between fourteen and twenty-four kilometers south of the city of Hebron.
Adra then, it should be remembered, in 2021 was falsely accused of having framed the Israeli Defense Forces and in 2022 he was beaten while filming the IDF (The Israel Defense Forces) demolishing a structure he had just built.
A curiosity: the Berlinale still reports this film in its program as Sensitive Content.
"Examining controversial issues on an artistic level in films is intended to inspire our audiences and explore boundaries. For this reason, some films may contain elements, motifs or depictions that may trigger strong reactions in some people Individual idea, experiences and dispositions mean that audience members experience the films in different ways. In order to best fulfill its curatorial responsibility, the Berlinale clarifies in lengthy synopses the thematic areas addressed in the works. These notes on sensitive content - also known as Content Notes (CN) - identify those films that may have a disturbing or distressing effect on people or groups in the audience".
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA