Hamdan Ballal holds his Oscar for Finest Documentary Characteristic for No Different Land on March 2, 2025. (picture by Angela Weiss/AFP through Getty Photos)
Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary No Different Land (2024), was attacked by Israeli settlers and brought by Israeli troopers within the Occupied West Financial institution at this time, March 24, in keeping with the movie’s co-director Yuval Abraham and as reported by Al Jazeera. Ballal’s whereabouts are at present unknown.
Abraham, an Israeli investigative journalist and co-star of the movie, stated on X this afternoon that Ballal was “lynched” by a gaggle of Israeli settlers attacking his village, Susiya, situated within the South Hebron Hills. Abraham stated that Ballal sustained accidents to his head and abdomen, and when an ambulance arrived for medical remedy, Israeli troopers entered the car and took him to an unknown location. Describing the assault as a part of a “lynch mob,” Abraham stated that there was “no sign” of Ballal since he was hauled off by Israeli forces.
Footage taken by Canadian activist Anna Lipman that Abraham subsequently posted to X exhibits a masked particular person whom he recognized as a member of the mob beating an unidentified particular person, as Lipman runs away from the altercation and runs to a automotive off-frame for security.
“[The settlers] continued to attack American activists, breaking their car with stones,” Abraham wrote within the submit.
Hyperallergic has contacted Abraham and No Different Land’s United Kingdom distributor, Dogwoof, for remark.
Submit by No Different Land filmmaker Yuval Abraham (screenshot Hyperallergic through X)
The incident comes within the wake of the movie’s historic Oscar win for Finest Characteristic-Size Documentary. Co-directed by two Israelis and two Palestinians, the 90-minute movie chronicles the Israeli navy’s destruction of houses and compelled displacement of Palestinians within the Occupied West Financial institution.
The movie documented Israeli settler violence in graphic element, together with a harrowing scene close to the movie’s finish through which co-director Basel Adra’s personal cousin is shot within the torso by an encroaching man with a gun in Masafer Yatta within the Occupied West Financial institution. Different scenes present Abraham yelling at troopers who stand with Israeli males as they throw stones at Palestinian houses.
In a two-minute speech on the Academy Awards, Abraham and Adra spoke on behalf of the Israeli-Palestinian collective that produced the movie and condemned Israel’s warfare on Gaza, demanding “serious actions to stop injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” Ballal didn’t make remarks in the course of the award speech.
The goal of a worldwide censorship marketing campaign, the movie nonetheless lacks a distributor in america. This month, in Miami Seashore, Florida, the town’s Mayor Steven Meiner threatened to defund and evict an impartial cinema for refusing to cancel screenings of the movie. Final week, the general public controversy got here to a halt at a prolonged metropolis fee assembly the place dozens of native residents advocated in help of the theater’s freedom to display screen the movie. Finally, the mayor withdrew his proposal.
This can be a growing story.
