Hamdan Ballal’s ‘No Other Land’ co-directors skewer film academy for silence on attack, detainment
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The filmmakers behind “No Other Land” say the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences failed this week to publicly step up and support co-director Hamdan Ballal when he “needed them most.”
Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who both co-directed and appeared in the documentary, criticized the film academy Wednesday for its silence on the recent attack against Ballal and his detainment by Israeli military and police in the occupied West Bank. Israel forces detained Ballal on Monday after he was attacked by settlers. He was released Tuesday. Just weeks ago he, Abraham, Adra and Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor accepted the documentary prize for “No Other Land” at the 97th Academy Awards.
Abraham tweeted a heated missive early Wednesday morning, writing that the academy “declined to publicly support Hamdan Ballal while he was beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers and settlers.” He said several members of the academy, which oversees the Oscars, pushed for a statement in support of Ballal, “but it was ultimately refused.” Earlier this week, the European Film Academy and the International Documentary Assn. were among the film groups raising awareness of Ballal’s detainment and calling for his release.
“We were told that because other Palestinians were beaten up in the settler attack, it could be considered unrelated to the film, so they felt no need to respond,” Abraham said.
Palestinian ‘No Other Land’ filmmaker Hamdan Ballal is free, less than a day after Israeli military and police forces detained him following a brutal attack by settlers.
Abraham wrote that his co-director heard Israeli soldiers “joking about the Oscar as they tortured him” and that Ballal “was also targeted for being Palestinian.” Adra, retweeting Abraham’s post, doubled down his collaborator’s claim Wednesday. He tweeted: “They refused to support Hamdan just because he is Palestinian. Another sign that our lives don’t matter.”
“This, it seems, gave the Academy an excuse to remain silent when a filmmaker they honored, living under Israeli occupation, needed them the most,” Abraham said, before adding “it’s not too late to change this stance.”
He ended his tweet: “Even now, issuing a statement condemning the attack on Hamdan and the Masafer Yatta community would send a meaningful message and serve as a deterrent for the future.”
A representative for the academy did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Israeli military and police detained Ballal on Monday evening after a group of settlers descended on the Palestinian village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area as its residents broke their daylong fast for Ramadan, according to the Associated Press. Ballal’s wife Lamia Ballal told AP she heard her husband being beaten outside their home and heard him screaming, “I’m dying.” She said she saw three men in uniform using the butts of their rifles and that the attention surrounding “No Other Land’s” Oscar win led settlers to “attack us more.”
A quartet of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers shapes footage of the bulldozing of West Bank’s Masafer Yatta into a cry of conscience against occupation.
Abraham and the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence announced Ballal’s detainment Monday. Abraham tweeted Monday that “soldiers invaded the ambulance [Ballal] called, and took him.” Adra also tweeted about Ballal’s detainment Monday, sharing a photo of a person with their hands behind their back being escorted into a vehicle bearing the Israeli flag. “Hamdan...is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding,” Adra said at the time.
On Monday, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence posted time-stamped, dashcam footage on Bluesky of the confrontation. The video showed someone shoving three people and punching one member of the group, and another person — whose face is covered by a mask — joined by several others, picking up an object from the ground and hurling it at the vehicle, destroying the windshield. Anna Lippman, a delegate for the activist group, shared video showing an alternate angle of the confrontation and tweeted photos of a vehicle with shards of glass in the passenger seats. She told The Times on Monday that Israeli soldiers took Ballal from the ambulance where he was receiving care, and also detained two other Palestinian men.
Hours after news of Ballal’s detainment spread Monday, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the “violent confrontation” broke out after after several people it described as “terrorists” allegedly hurled rocks at Israeli citizens and damaged their vehicles. The incident involved “mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene,” the statement said. According to the statement, IDF and Israel police responded to “disperse the confrontation” and the people it described as “terrorists” started hurling rocks their way. Israeli forces detained four people, including an Israeli person allegedly involved in the incident, and took them into custody for further questioning.
The IDF spokesperson Monday denied the allegations that it detained someone from inside an ambulance. Israeli forces detained Ballal on suspicion of hurling rocks at IDF and police.
Ballal was released Tuesday from an Israeli police station with bruises on his face and blood on his clothes. He told AP he was blindfolded, forced to sleep under a “freezing” air conditioner and he “heard the voices of soldiers laughing about me.”
Made by a team of Palestinian and Israeli activist filmmakers, the Academy Award-nominated documentary is a look at life under occupation in a small West Bank village.
In a statement to The Times on Wednesday morning, the IDF spokesperson denied “baseless” allegations that the detainees were beaten at a military detention facility and said forces “facilitated medical treatment” for the people it detained. The statement said detainees remained handcuffed “in accordance with operational protocol,” but it did not address Ballal’s claims about detainment. Israeli forces questioned three detainees “on suspicion of rock hurling, property damage, and endangering regional security,” according to the statement. They were released from Israeli custody “under conditions that include a ban on contact with other individuals involved in the incident and personal bail.”
The spokesperson added that an Israeli civilian was allegedly injured in Monday’s confrontation and required medical attention.
“The investigation is ongoing, and further arrests are expected,” the statement said.
After Ballal’s release, Abraham tweeted Tuesday that his co-director “is now free and about to go home to his family.” Adra also shared photos of his co-director receiving medical care. The photos show Ballal on a medical exam table with two medical personnel around him, one wrapping a blood pressure monitor around the director’s left arm. There are dark stains that look like blood on a sleeve and the front of his striped shirt.
Ballal, in an interview with the Guardian published Wednesday, said, “It was a revenge for our movie.”
“No Other Land” captures Israel’s demolition of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta and displacement of its communities in favor of Israeli military training grounds.
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