Berlin Film Festival winner No Other Land has scooped the best documentary at the Gotham Awards, Hollywood’s first big awards season bash.
Several recent top winners at the event, which recognises independent films, have gone on to win major awards. Last year's winner, Past Lives, was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, while past winners Everything, Everywhere All at Once and Nomadland won multiple awards at recent Oscars ceremonies.
Centred on the struggles faced by Palestinian journalist Basel Adra to preserve his West Bank village Masafer Yatta from Israeli settlers, No Other Land won the top documentary prize at the Berlin Film Festival in February. An Israeli-Palestinian production, Adra shares director credits with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham.
Three million Palestinians and about 500,000 Israeli Jews call the West Bank home and, according to Israeli non-profit Peace Now, more than 50 square kilometres have been annexed since the beginning of January – more than in any previous calendar year.
Despite being one of the year’s most acclaimed documentaries, No Other Land remains without an American distributor. Controversy erupted in February after Abraham, while receiving the award at the Berlin Film Festival, criticised Israel's attacks on Gaza and branded his country's actions in the West Bank "apartheid".
“I am living under a civilian law and Basel is under military law; we live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights and Basel does not have voting rights,” Abraham said. "I am free to move where I want in this land, and Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, it has to end."
The speech sparked an outcry in German media, with politicians accusing him of being "anti-Semitic". Israeli media also aired a small segment and labelled it as anti-Semitism. Abraham later said he was unable to return home as a result, with threats made to him and his family.
“A right-wing Israeli mob came to my family’s home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night,” he posted on social media.
“I am still getting death threats and had to cancel my flight home. This happened after Israeli media and German politicians absurdly labelled my Berlinale award speech – where I called for equality between Israelis and Palestinians, a ceasefire and an end to apartheid – as 'anti-semitic'.”
The controversy resurfaced last week ahead of a screening of the film in Berlin when the city's government website described the film as having “anti-semitic tendencies”.
“You are weaponising this word, anti-semitism, which carries so much weight for me as a Jewish person,” Abraham said in a panel after the screening.
