FRESH FROM ITS HISTORIC WIN as Best Documentary at the 97th Oscars, No Other Land arrives as more than just a film. It is an urgent testimony of resistance against erasure. As U.S. President Donald Trump openly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, this documentary by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor becomes even more than a cinematic achievement. It is an unflinching witness to a decades-long genocide. With raw emotional weight, it immerses audiences in the brutal reality of life under occupation, refusing to let the world turn away.

After all, No Other Land is an unapologetic confrontation with the realities of life amid decades of ethnic cleansing. Created by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, the film closely documents the destruction of homes and the unyielding resistance of the people in the villages of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. Each day the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) demolished a home, its residents would try to stealthily rebuild it from scratch by night, risking their lives in the process. For the uninitiated, such images may feel too raw, too close. But for those willing to see, they are simply the epitome of 21st-Century inhumanity.

One may feel that it is too disturbing to be true, and those unfamiliar with the violence of occupation might dismiss it as too barbaric to belong in our modern time. But therein lies the film’s power: its unflinching ability to shatter our assumptions about the world and force us to confront uncomfortable truths.

Truly, it is a singular viewing experience: When the credits rolled, the theater remained hushed, as if the collective breath of the viewers had been stolen away. It’s because this is no ordinary documentary. The label documentary feels reductive for a film so profoundly immersive that it blurs the line between cinema and lived experience. Where fiction often claims to tell truths through its lies, No Other Land turns this notion on its head. This film highlights documentary filmmaking as a creative act, not just a way to observe or share the truth. The hand-held camera footage pulls the audience into a narrative that can be too painful to be fiction and too real to be overlooked.

At its heart is the bond between Basel Adra, a Palestinian, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli; their friendship is forged against the harrowing backdrop of a settler-occupation genocide against the occupied. The film grounds itself in their perspectives without losing sight of the larger picture: generations of families rebuilding homes that are torn down again and again, refusing to surrender their right to exist. Decades-old archival footage meld seamlessly with the present, creating a haunting timeline of displacement and resistance.

Technically, No Other Land is a masterclass. Its editing and sound design do more than complement the story; they heighten its urgency. Each cut and each soundscape sharpens the emotional stakes. But the true bravery lies behind the camera, where filmmakers risked abduction, harassment, and death to document every demolition, every confrontation, every unbearable loss.

This is a film born of blood and the lives of Palestinians, a story from a people determined to be seen. In a time where coverage of the genocide in Palestine is obfuscated and forcibly muted, No Other Land dares us never — ever — look away.