No Other Land director says Oscar 'meant nothing' after Israeli attack

The National

27-04-2025

Hamdan Ballal, who is one of four directors for the documentary No Other Land, was detained, handcuffed, and blindfolded, by the Israeli military and later released.
The film, about the disputed West Bank, won the Oscar for best documentary feature film on March 2.
Writing in the New York Times, Ballal told of his experience, how he feared he would be killed, and that it was the 'worst moment of my life'.
He was left hospitalised after the brutal attack.
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'It's hard to put into words how that moment felt,' he said of the Oscar win.
'It was one of the most incredible moments of my life.
'Three weeks later, I was brutally attacked in my home and arrested.
'In an instant, it was as if the Oscars had never happened, as if the award didn't mean anything.'
He added: 'We made our movie in order to bring attention to the situation where I live, to try to bring change to our communities, but when I was attacked, I realized that we were still trapped in the same grinding loop of violence and subjugation.'
Relaying his experience of the attack on March 24, during Ramadan, he described how he saw 'a settler and two soldiers coming down the hill toward me', telling his wife to keep herself and their three young children inside.
Ballal wrote: 'I recognized the men coming toward us. They met me outside the door of my home and started beating and cursing me, mocking me as the 'Oscar-winning filmmaker'.
(Image: @basel_adra, via Twitter/X) 'I felt guns bashing my ribs. Someone punched me in the head from behind. I fell to the ground.
'I was kicked and spat on. I felt immense pain and fear.
'I could hear my wife and kids screaming and crying, calling for me and telling the men to go away. It was the worst moment of my life.
'My wife and I both thought I would be killed. We feared what would happen to my family if I died.'
Ballal said he was then handcuffed, blindfolded, and beaten, being held on a military base until he was released the next day.
He insisted that the herding communities in Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, 'does not know only violence'.
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But, Ballal explained that the near 'daily violence' is impacting the region's ability to farm, produce food and, maintain its traditions.
'On the day of the attack, alongside the fear, I felt something else I didn't expect: heartbreak,' Ballal wrote.
'My heart was broken from the disappointment. From the sense of failure. From the powerlessness.
'Three weeks earlier, on the Oscar stage, I had a taste of power and possibility. But even though our movie received global recognition, I felt I had failed — we had failed — in our attempt to make life better here.
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'To convince the world something needed to change. My life is still at the mercy of the settlers and the occupation. My community is still suffering from unending violence.
'Our movie won an Oscar, but our lives are no better than before.'
It comes after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologised following criticism for its failure to support Ballal while he was detained.
Nearly 700 voting members, including several A-Listers, signed an open letter rebuking the body.
The academy's initial response did not mention Ballal by name, but later issued an apology.