Latest news with #Close-Up
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Palestinian Group Calls Out Oscar-Winning Doc ‘No Other Land' for 'Normalization' of Israeli Occupation
A prominent Palestinian rights group has sharply criticized the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, alleging the film, which was directed by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, violates the guidelines of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The BDS movement opposes cooperation with Israeli companies operating in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), aligned with BDS, has called out No Other Land for allegedly violating so-called 'anti-normalization' guidelines that, the group argues, make the idea of Israeli 'occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism seem normal and establishing normal relations with the Israeli regime.' More from The Hollywood Reporter San Diego Comic-Con Sets First International Edition for Spain in September 'Industry' Star Marisa Abela Needed a Break. So She Took a Role Opposite Cate Blanchett BBC Takes Thomas Vinterberg's Climate Change Drama Series 'Families Like Ours' for U.K. No Other Land seems an unlikely target for pro-Palestinian groups. The film chronicles the repeated destruction and demolition of the Masafer Yatta community in the occupied West Bank and the alliance that develops between Palestinian journalist and co-director Basel Adra, and Israeli journalist and co-director Yuval Abraham. Since its debut at last year's Berlinale, where it won the best documentary prize, the film has come under attack from right-wing and pro-Israeli critics. Israel's culture and sports minister Miki Zohar called the film's Oscar win 'a sad moment for the world of cinema,' accusing the documentary of 'defamation of Israel.' The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., has thrown its support behind the film, publicly calling for U.S. distributors and streaming platforms to distribute the movie stateside. (Despite the Oscar win, No Other Land still does not have a U.S. distributor.) 'The American people deserve the right to see this film,' CAIR said. In its statement on the film first published on March 5, PACBI acknowledges 'Israel, its massive lobby groups, and its anti-Palestinian racist partners in western cultural establishments,' have attacked No Other Land because they see it as 'exposing an important, if partial, dimension of Israel's system of colonial oppression [and] Israel's crimes, such as the ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta.' But the group says the film still violates BDS guidelines, as it was produced with the help of Israeli documentary film NGO Close-Up, which did not provide any funding but assisted the filmmakers during development. PACBI has called for a boycott of Close-Up, which it claims is 'engaging in normalization' by encouraging filmmakers to engage with Israel 'as if it were a normal state.' In 2019, a call to boycott Close-Up was signed by more than 500 filmmakers, most from the Arab world, including Palestinian director Mohamed Bakri (Jenin, Jenin), Egyptian director Ali Badrakhan (Karnak Cafe), and Lebanese documentarian Eliane Raheb (Miguel's War). PACBI also notes that there has been 'simmering controversy' around No Other Land in the Arab world, particularly since its Oscar win and the acceptance speech by co-director Abraham, in which he called out 'the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people' as well as condemning the brutality of the October 7th attacks on Israel. PACBI has also criticized some No Other Land's Israeli members for '[failing] to acknowledge that Israel is perpetrating a genocide, or have even made extremely harmful, immoral statements drawing a false equivalence between the colonizer and the colonized that may be used to rationalize Israel's genocide.' PACBI, however, has stopped short of calling for a boycott of the film, saying that could prove 'counterproductive,' noting that in 'mainstream circles' the movie could help raise awareness 'about the struggle against Israel's military occupation and ethnic cleansing.' In an FAQ statement published on the group's website on Monday, PACBI noted that, prior to the Oscars, the 'expected harm for the Palestinian struggle' from publicly criticizing the film was 'significantly higher than the expected benefit.' After the film won an Oscar, however, the group said it saw a danger in what it sees as No Other Land's 'normalization' with regards to Israel, particularly in the Arab region. 'This is also why,' the group writes, 'the position was originally crafted and released in Arabic for an Arab audience.' Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, a PACBI spokesperson noted that BDS movement's anti-normalization guidelines 'target complicity not identity, and institutions, not individuals,' highlighting that the criticism of No Other Land is not directed at individual filmmakers, but at the movie's links to Close-Up. THR has requested a comment from both Close-up and the No Other Land filmmakers but did not immediately receive a response. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked 20 Times the Oscars Got It Wrong The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time
CBC
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Flashback: Smart sipping
The eternal Joyce Wieland Artist Joyce Wieland in retrospective in 1987 38 years ago Duration 7:35 The painter, quilter and writer gets a major show at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Aired on CBC's The Journal on April 24, 1987. In its exhibition Joyce Wieland: Heart On, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has put together an artist retrospective that "feels like an uncanny take on today's breaking news," wrote Eve Thomas for CBC Arts in February. Wieland spoke about her life and work with arts journalist Daniel Richler in a 1987 profile on CBC's The Journal. (The piece is also loaded with glimpses of the artist's many films, paintings and quilts.) Richler asked Wieland, who died in 1998, if she was concerned about her place in the history of Canadian art. "As I get older, I think of [B.C. painter] Emily Carr … and her retrospective coming after her death," Wieland said. "These are the things I've thought about — that I could be completely passed by and I wouldn't be remembered. I know that's extreme, but it's a possibility." Smart serving Why consume so-called "smart" drinks? 7 days ago Duration 1:55 What's in the fridge? According to CBC News, the Coca-Cola Company is making its own prebiotic soda with fibre and less sugar than regular sodas, similar to brands like Olipop and Poppi, which call their drinks "functional" and sell them as wellness products. Beverages with purported benefits were making the news in 1997 too. The CBC show Future World reported on the trend for non-alcoholic "smart" drinks and learned how they got their name. "They're really called smart drinks because they're supposed to be good for you," said Fernando Mateos of The Smart Bar in Toronto, before he blended one for a customer. "And in fact they are good for you in terms of ingesting natural vitamins as opposed to synthetic vitamins, and you get real minerals as opposed to synthetic minerals." Tracks to the future A monorail for Toronto? 13 days ago Duration 1:42 In February, the federal government announced the first phase of a plan to build a high-speed rail network from Toronto to Quebec City. But a CBC News story notes that a future government could modify or cancel the project. Still, it's more certain than another transit project in 1958 in Toronto. At the very least, scenes of a monorail in action made for captivating images on the CBC current affairs show Close-Up. Host Rex Loring, seen above, said Close-Up producer Douglas Leiterman had asked the most intriguing question about the monorail: "if it's as good as it claims, why has nobody bought it?" The Rocket revisited Hockey Hall of Fame opens a permanent home in 1961 64 years ago Duration 1:04 The new documentary Maurice is as much a cultural history of Quebec as it is about hockey star Maurice (The Rocket) Richard, according to CBC Arts contributor Justine Smith. But does it mention that time he officially opened the Hockey Hall of Fame with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Snow mobility Storm dumps heavy snow on Montreal in 1971 12 days ago Duration 1:50 Montrealers are digging out after a huge single-day snowfall. In a recent look at how Montreal has removed snow in years past, CBC News said it once involved horse-drawn plows and, often, solely "people and their shovels." After a big March storm in 1971, at least one Montrealer preferred snowmobiling to shovelling. Not their first rodeo Blue Rodeo: Lost Together, a new documentary on CBC Gem, looks at the friendship between the band's founders, Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor. In 1988, the pair caught the notice of CBC's Midday, where they spoke about finding their niche playing country-inflected music. Wayne's world
