For Basel and his community, this land isn’t merely territory — it’s identity, livelihood, their past and future.

No Other Land vividly captures the intensity of life in rural Palestinian villages and the everyday destruction perpetrated by both Israeli authorities and the nearby settler population: the repeated demolition of Palestinian homes and schools; destruction of water sources such as wells; uprooting of olive trees; and the constant threat of extreme violence.

While this 95-minute slice of Palestinian life opened the world’s eyes, most are unaware that No Other Land takes place in an area of the West Bank that is ground zero for any viable future Palestinian state.

Designated as “Area C” under the Oslo Peace Accords, it constitutes 60% of the occupied West Bank and is where the bulk of Israeli settlements and outposts are located. It is a beautiful and resource-rich area upon which a Palestinian state would need to rely for self-sufficiency.

For decades now, Israel has been using military rule as well as its planning regime to take over huge swathes of Area C, land that is Palestinian — lived and worked on for generations.

This has been achieved through Israel’s High Planning Council, an institution constituted solely of Israelis who oversee the use of the land through permits — a system that invariably benefits Israelis and subjugates Palestinians, so much so that Israel denies access to Palestinians of 99 percent of the land in Area C including their own agricultural lands and private property.

‘This is apartheid’
Michael Lynk, when he was serving as UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to Israel’s planning system as “de-development” and stated explicitly: “This is apartheid”.

The International Court of Justice recently affirmed what Palestinians have long known: Israel’s planning policies in the West Bank are not only discriminatory but form part of a broader annexation agenda — a violation of international humanitarian law.

To these ends, Israel deploys a variety of strategies: Israeli officials will deem certain areas as “state lands”, necessary for military use, or designate them as archaeologically significant, or will grant permission for the expansion of an existing settlement or the establishment of a new one.

Meanwhile, less than 1 percent of Palestinian permit applications were granted at the best of times, a percentage which has dropped to zero since October 2023.

As part of the annexation strategy, one of Israel’s goals with respect to Area C is demographic: to move Israelis in and drive Palestinians out — all in violation of international law which prohibits the forced relocation of occupied peoples and the transfer of the occupant’s population to occupied land.

Regardless, Israel is achieving its goal with impunity: between 2023 and 2025 more than 7,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in Area C due to Israeli settler violence and access restrictions.

At least 16 Palestinian communities have been completely emptied, their residents scattered, and their ties to ancestral lands severed.

Israel’s settler colonialism on steroids
Under the cover of the international community’s focus on Gaza since October 2023, Israel has accelerated its land grab at an unprecedented pace.

The government has increased funding for settlements by nearly 150 percent; more than 25,000 new Israeli housing units in settlements have been advanced or approved; and Israel has been carving out new roads through Palestinian lands in the West Bank, severing Palestinians from each other, their lands and other vital resources.

Israeli authorities have also encouraged the establishment of new Israeli outposts in Area C, housing some of the most radical settlers who have been intensifying serious violence against Palestinians in the area, often with the support of Israeli soldiers.

None of this is accidental. In December 2022, Israel appointed Bezalel Smotrich, founder of a settler organisation and a settler himself, to oversee civilian affairs in the West Bank.

Since then, administrative changes have accelerated settlement expansion while tightening restrictions on Palestinians. New checkpoints and barriers throughout Area C have further isolated Palestinian communities, making daily life increasingly impossible.

Humanitarian organisations and the international community provide much-needed emergency assistance to help Palestinians maintain a foothold, but Palestinians are quickly losing ground.

As No Other Land hit screens in movie houses across the world, settlers were storming homes in Area C and since the Oscar win there has been a notable uptick in violence. Just this week reports emerged that co-director Hamdan Ballal was himself badly beaten by Israeli settlers and incarcerated overnight by the Israeli army.

Israel’s annexation of Area C is imminent. To retain it as Palestinian will require both the Palestinian Authority and the international community to shift the paradigm, assert that Area C is Palestinian and take more robust actions to breathe life into this legal fact.

The road map for doing so was laid by the International Court of Justice who found unequivocally that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful and must come to an end.

They specified that the international community has obligations in this regard: they must not directly or indirectly aid Israel in maintaining the occupation and they must cooperate to end it.

With respect to Area C, this includes tackling Israel’s settlement policy to cease, prevent and reverse settlement construction and expansion; preventing any further settler violence; and ending any engagement with Israel’s discriminatory High Planning Council, which must be dismantled.

With no time to waste, and despite all the other urgencies in Gaza and the West Bank, if there is to be a Palestinian state, Palestinians in Area C must be provided with full support – political, financial, and legal — by local authorities and the international community, to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

After all, Area C is Palestine.

Leilani Farha is a former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing and author of the report Area C is Everything. Republished under Creative Commons.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SAMUEL L. JACKSON: And the Oscar goes to ‘No Other Land’.

AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won for best documentary. The film follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amidst violent attacks by Israeli settlers aimed at expelling them. The film was made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, including the Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. 

Both filmmakers — Palestinian activist and journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham — spoke at the ceremony. Adra became the first Palestinian filmmaker to win an Oscar.

BASEL ADRA: Thank you to the Academy for the award. It’s such a big honor for the four of us and everybody who supported us for this documentary.

About two months ago, I became a father. And my hope to my daughter, that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing — always — always fearing settlers’ violence, home demolitions and forceful displacements that my community, Masafer Yatta, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation.

‘No Other Land’ reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: We made this — we made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger.

We see each other — the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end; the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th, which must be freed.

When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.

There is a different path: a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here: The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.

And, you know, why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way.

It’s not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way. Thank you.

Israeli and Palestinian documentary ‘No Other Land’ wins Oscar. Video: Democracy Now!

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Stuart Richards in Adelaide

Every year it is the same story: the Academy comes so close to catching up with the rest of the film world, only to award the Oscar for Best Picture to the most middling of the bunch.

Many cinephiles the world over were likely scratching their heads, or rolling their eyes, or perhaps throwing something at the television, when Julia Roberts called out Green Book’s name, a film the LA Times later dubbed “the worst Best Picture winner since Crash”.

The film is the story of an unlikely friendship between musician Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his driver Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), as they tour America’s South in the 1960s. It sits in a long line of Hollywood films that feature a white protagonist “saving” the black character, who is rendered passive in the process.

READ MORE: The backlash to Green Book explained

The film has been denounced by Shirley’s family for its depiction of him as an isolated figure, estranged from his three brothers and the black community. (In hindsight, maybe Crash wasn’t that bad?)

BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee was apparently so incensed by the Best Picture announcement that he stormed to the back of the theatre only to be ushered back into his seat. He and director Jordan Peele reportedly did not clap the winners. Later, with a drink in hand, Lee told the press room that the “ref made a bad call”.

That a film with a white saviour narrative won the big prize shouldn’t really be much of a shock though.

The Academy Awards have battled with a number of controversies over the last few years, from #Oscarssowhite to La La Land being mistakenly read out as the winner of Best Picture in 2017 over Moonlight. An LA Times report in 2016 identified 91 percent of Oscar voters as white and 76 percent male.

It’s clear that the Academy needs to continue to up its game in diversifying the voting demographic.

The role of campaigning, and studios selecting which films to push, also stops the awards from genuinely reflecting the best works. Other films, notably by women directors, were shut out this year. Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here and Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me are just two that deserved wider recognition.

The big takeaway message from this year’s ceremony, if it wasn’t clear already, is that we shouldn’t look to the Academy for any enlightened thinking.

A sea of safeness and whiteness
The optics of the Green Book team accepting their award could not have been more glaring. A collection of predominantly white men (and Mahershala Ali and Octavia Spencer to the side) pronounced that the film, to paraphrase, is about love and loving each other despite our differences and finding out that we are the same people.

For a film that is meant to be about race relations in America, all we got from the speech was a sea of safeness and whiteness.

In 2010, the Academy expanded the Best Picture category to up to 10 nominees. This change also saw the introduction of preferential voting. All voting members rank the year’s nominees from first through to eighth. If the film with the most first place votes doesn’t break 50 percent, then the film with the lowest first place votes is eliminated and its votes redistributed according to preferences.

This will then occur with the next lowest ranking film until a film cracks the 50 percent margin. As such, second and third place votes begin to count just as much as first place votes.

This preferential voting system results in a more agreeable film winning over a divisive one. This is perhaps why The Shape of Water won last year over Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

It also creates an interesting divide between critics and much of the film-going public and the Academy voters. Leading up to the awards, critical consensus saw Roma as the more agreeable choice, with Green Book being the divisive nominee. Turns out, this perspective was reversed in the world of the Academy and Green Book was deemed the most agreeable.

A year of back peddling
The awards this year were contentious before the ceremony even began. Kevin Hart’s previous homophobic remarks resulted in him stepping down. Four awards – cinematography, film editing, makeup/hairstyling, and live-action short – were going to be cut from the live broadcast.

The Oscars also initially snubbed nominated songs from the show, which is not a new occurrence .

The Academy then did a lot of back peddling. There was no main host, all awards were included in the live broadcast and four of the nominated songs were performed live, with the omission of All the Stars by Kendrick Lamar and SZA from Black Panther due to “logistics and timing”. The Academy is really bad at reading the room until it’s too late.

John Ottman, accepting the award for Best Editing of Bohemian Rhapsody, said the production was a labour of love with everyone bonding together. This perspective was an odd contrast to recent statements made by Rami Malek, in which he said that working with the film’s sometime director Bryan Singer “was not pleasant”.

In his acceptance speech for Best Actor, Malek also identified Bohemian Rhapsody as being about an unapologetically gay immigrant, yet it has been reported that Mercury was bisexual. If only the film could have been celebratory of Mercury’s sexuality. Still, the homophobic moralising will most likely be overshadowed by Green Book’s win.

One other glaring lowlight of the show was Broadway actress Carol Channing being omitted from the In Memoriam section. While there are eyebrow raising omissions every year, to not include Channing, who was show business personified, is sad indeed.

Highlights
In the sea of disappointment, there were several delightful moments. The choices of presenters seemed laughably odd. Serena Williams introducing A Star is Born and Queen Latifah introducing The Favourite were interesting to say the least.

Barbra Streisand introduced BlacKkKlansman because apparently she and Spike Lee both grew up in Brooklyn.

Lee, who won an honorary Oscar in 2016, won this year for Best Adapted Screenplay. The reception the film received was notably more rapturous than the one given to Green Book for Best Original Screenplay. The difference was palpable. Lee noted that February was Black History Month in the US:

1619, 2019. 400 years. 400 years our ancestors were stolen from mother Africa and brought to Jamestown, Virginia enslaved. Our ancestors worked the land, from can’t see at morning to can’t see at night.

The ceremony did see a significant number of women artists of colour taking to the stage to collect awards, from Hannah Beachler, production designer for Black Panther, to Regina King winning for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk.

Other highlights included Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s performance of the Best Original Song, Shallow, which evoked old school Hollywood glamour. The chemistry between the two is palpable.

Joyous upsets included Olivia Colman winning Best Actress over the hot favourite Glenn Close, who was nominated for her seventh time. Colman gave a scattered and heartwarming speech which won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

The ceremony tried to pitch itself as being liberal, with several mentions of metaphorically tearing down walls. It’s clear though, that in Hollywood, this will always happen on the power players’ terms.

The Academy Awards will never be as progressive as we want them to be. If that’s what you are looking for, then tune into the Indie Spirit awards.

In the end, final Oscars presenter Julia Roberts was drowned out by music emanating from the orchestra in the pit as she closed the show. Even the producers were done.

Let’s just remember the select moments of joy and forget the rest ever happened.

Dr Stuart Richards is lecturer in screen studies in the School of Creative Industries at the University of South Australia. This article was first published by The Conversation and is republished by Asia Pacific Report under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Comment from Vanuatu Daily Digest

Knee-jerk resentment of someone else’s success, as elsewhere, is sadly a feature of Vanuatu life, so the kind of comment seen below, prompted by the feature film Tanna‘s global success  — and now Oscar nomination, is not unexpected:

Thanks and good tumas blo save’ but my comments is, I think my people have been exploited and although the film is making its name to the top, how are these custom village people, the film actors, the island and the country been compensated for what they have to go through to produce this film including any protocol in this country? Can some one reply to this comments with some evidence?

Exploitation is a serious claim to make, however, so we are taking this opportunity to set the record straight.

Protecting kastom mo kalja is taken very seriously in Vanuatu. The Vanuatu Cultural Centre — as the commentor may already know — has stringent protocols in place to prevent exploitation of communities.

Filmcrews must get prior approval to work in Vanuatu, are carefully monitored while working in the country, and must give a copy of their unedited footage to the Cultural Centre when they leave.

On Tanna, the Tafea Cultural Centre supervises all cultural protocols.

In the film Tanna‘s case, The filmmakers went a step further – they opened a kastom rod (a relationship built on mutual respect and kastom) between themselves, the chiefs and the community. This connection is arguably a major reason why audiences have responded so well to Tanna – the genuine, heartfelt connection between the filmmakers, the cast and the community is apparent.

Vanuatu Daily Digest reached out to the filmmakers for clarification, and Janita Suter, wife of co-director Bentley Dean and location producer for the film had this to say:

“The film was only possible through the auspices of the Vanuatu Culture Centre at a national and local level, who insist and ensure that all people involved in the productions of films in Vanuatu are dealt with fairly and respectfully — including representation and payment during production (both traditional and financial).

“Beyond this The Vanuatu Culture Centre and community of Yakel are in charge of DVD sales for all of Vanuatu, including how the film is distributed and profits. Our aim is that people should continue to benefit from their cultural output.

“We’re regularly in contact with the community, in fact one was recently staying with us! The film continues to give back to the community and the chiefs have been happy with this arrangement right from the beginning. The chiefs maintain there is a strong kastom road between us.

“It is good to clarify this sort of commentary. There were very deliberate safeguards to ensure no ‘exploitation’ occurred and that the correct ‘monetary compensation’ was made for those involved in the film. This was all arranged through the official relevant Vanuatu institutions described above, as is the correct process for filming in Vanuatu, as well as the traditional chiefs of the villages involved.

“If people have queries on this they can speak with the chiefs of Yakel or Jacob Kapere from the Cultural Centre, or the cultural director of Tanna, JJ Nako (if you can find him!).”