IDFA-supported No Other Land wins Documentary Award at the Berlinale

The debut film by the filmmaker collective—made up of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor—was awarded the Berlinale Documentary Award and the Panorama Dokumente Audience Award. No Other Land shows the destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli authorities and the unlikely alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval. The film was previously supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund, having received IBF Classic support in 2021 and IBF Europe minority co-production support in 2022.

“We are proud to have supported No Other Land and the team behind it. The work that Basel, Yuval, Rachel, and Hamdan did is very important, and deeply meaningful at such difficult times. We stand in solidarity with them as we observe the sad news about accusations and threats aimed at them. The team’s work and their commitment to a serious critical position are at the core of what documentary filmmaking is, and are honorable positions that we value and cherish,” says Isabel Arrate Fernandez, Deputy Director of IDFA and Executive Director of the IDFA Bertha Fund.

Featured in the IBF Activity Report 2022, filmmakers Hamdan Balal and Basel El-Adara spoke of the urgency behind their film. “We now have hundreds of hours of footage,” said El-Adara. “Not only depicting the aggression of the Israeli army, but also everyday life. With this, we want to show that people do live here and that this is not an empty no man's land, as claimed by the Israeli court. The film camera is our weapon of proof.” Read the interview here.