The directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land are sharply criticizing Pres. Trump’s plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and dispatch its Palestinian inhabitants to other Arab countries.
In an interview with Deadline, Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham said Trump’s idea amounted to “ethnically cleansing Gaza… It is so irresponsible, it’s so immoral.”
“It’s shocking,” added Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra, who along with Abraham make up half the quartet of Israeli and Palestinian directors nominated for No Other Land, which is set in the Israeli occupied West Bank. “This is a stupid thing to say, what he’s saying about Gaza, like take 2 million people and to build for them a land here or there, or just to take them out. And sometimes he said that they would come back [to Gaza] and sometimes saying they will never come back.”
Adra continued, “It’s insane and a crazy thing. And he’s just saying things from a perspective of power, that he feels there are no consequences for his words and his actions. And he can do whatever he wants, and he can say whatever he wants.”
President Donald Trump greets Jordan’s King Abdullah II as he arrives at the White House on February 11, 2025
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The president reiterated his proposal several times this week, including at a White House meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Trump, who has described his plan as designed to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” told reporters Tuesday, “We’ll have lots of good things built there, including hotels and office buildings and housing and other things and we’ll make that into what it should be.”
King Abdullah has rejected the idea. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have reacted similarly. On Thursday, the New York Times published a full-page ad signed by hundreds of rabbis and members of the entertainment community – including Joaquin Phoenix, Ilana Glazer, and playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner – that read, “Trump has now called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing!”
Basel Adra in ‘No Other Land’
Yabaya Media
No Other Land, winner of more than 60 awards around the world, offers a ground level view of life for Palestinian villagers in the rural Masafer Yatta area of the West Bank, who face the constant threat of expulsion from the Israel Defense Forces and frequent attacks by Israeli settlers. The IDF ramped up home demolitions recently, Adra and Abraham said.
“This week there was a big demolition in three of the villages of Masafer Yatta and around 11 homes were destroyed,” Adra told Deadline. “In one village only, they smashed seven homes and three ancient caves. Around 74 residents lost their homes.” Adra said settlers committed “very serious attacks in different places” in January, “and there is the daily harassment by settlers where they try to destroy crops and preventing [Palestinian] people to reach their land, to cultivate their land.”
Adra accused the Israeli state of continuing to build infrastructure for Israeli settlements in the West Bank, “and the same state sends the same, almost same bulldozers to destroy our properties and our homes and our roads and block entrances to the communities.”
“It’s very clear that both things are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Abraham commented. “Transferring Israeli population into occupied territories in the West Bank is illegal. And then transferring out Palestinians from the occupied territories as is happening in Masafer Yatta, as Trump wants to accelerate in Gaza, is also illegal.”
Basel Adra (left) and Yuval Abraham in ‘No Other Land’
Yabayay Media
Despite winning top prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, the European Film Awards, the Gotham Awards, the IDA Awards, CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, Sheffield DocFest in the U.K. and elsewhere, No Other Land has yet to reach a deal for U.S. distribution.
Asked why he thought U.S. distributors had passed on the film, Abraham said, “I believe it’s clear that it’s for political reasons. I hope that it will change. We basically decided not to wait on the theatrical release because the demand in the United States is now so high for the film, and we are now releasing it in almost 100 theaters independently. And we’re seeing everything is sold out. People are coming to watch it, which is really amazing… There are still conversations happening and we are still holding onto this hope that a big distributor will have the minimal amount of courage to take on [the] film.”
The filmmakers did not enter the film for the Directors Guild of America Award, Deadline understands. It reportedly did not qualify for the Producers Guild of America Award. It competes for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars with Black Box Diaries, Porcelain War, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and Sugarcane, all of which have U.S. distribution.
L-R ‘No Other Land’ directors Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham attend the New York Film Festival
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for FLC
Whether all four nominated directors of No Other Land – Adra, Abraham, Rachel Szor, and Hamdan Ballal – will be able to attend the Academy Awards remains uncertain. Israelis Abraham and Szor likely won’t encounter obstacles to travel, but that’s not the case for Palestinians Adra and Ballal.
“Basel was already in New York, he has a visa,” Abraham observed. “It still doesn’t mean the [Israeli] army will allow him to pass — we just don’t know until he reaches the checkpoint [in the occupied West Bank] what will happen. Maybe the military will try to prevent it. We don’t know. We hope not.”
Abraham said Ballal hasn’t received a visa to travel to the U.S., “and there’s not a lot of time left. We’re very afraid that it’ll not happen… But he wants to go because he believes it’s a strong opportunity to bring the community of Masafer Yatta, which is being erased, to make its existence clear on the biggest stage of the entire world. Will he get a visa? Will Trump give him a visa? We don’t know. So, we will have to see.”
