The curatorial freedom of indie cinemas
About the "controversy" of Israeli-Palestinian doc NO OTHER LAND and why it matters for Maine
Three weeks after he accepted his golden statuette for the Oscar for Best International Feature, Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, part of the Israeli-Palestinian filmmaking collective that directed NO OTHER LAND, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and is now recovering, having spent the night blindfolded and handcuffed in Israeli detention. Earlier this month, the O Cinema, an arthouse cinema in Miami Beach, Florida, overcame an eviction threat from the city government over their showing of the Oscar-winning documentary. Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner proposed the City terminate the cinema’s lease over concerns of “rising anti-semitism and public safety concerns.” After robust opposition from Miami Beach locals, the Florida ACLU, and filmmakers and cinemas nationwide, Meiner withdrew his proposal.
The West Bank and Florida are miles away from Maine, and perhaps violent backlash against art seems improbable here (although arguably it shouldn’t). Government censorship of art, however, is less sensational than outright violence but just as insidious and chilling. Maine cinemas have a duty to provide platforms for artistic freedom, not because a film like NO OTHER LAND is controversial, but because it is damn good.
It’s not clear whether the Miami Beach mayor Steven Meiner and his supporters saw NO OTHER LAND, but I did, and I did not detect a whiff of propaganda from either Hamas or Israel. Meiner’s “just asking questions” suggestion that the cinema should show films that are fair and balanced is merely censorship in sheep’s clothing because it reduces the film into a lazily uncomplicated (and frankly boring) category. The fact that the film was directed by a collective of four Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers shouldn’t have to serve as the main argument that this film isn’t Hamas propaganda. The main piece of evidence in support of that truth should be the art of the film itself.
Lots of people think that documentaries are supposed to be unbiased, sterile accounts of true events, and forget that documentary film is art, just like narrative/fiction film is. Some documentaries are more heavy-handed in their biases, but NO OTHER LAND is not– it shows first-hand footage from both of the central characters from opposite sides of a decades-old conflict. It’s a methodical but emotional portrait of the friendship between two men, one Israeli and one Palestinian, in the face of the destruction of Palestinian homes in the West Bank by the Israeli military. It’s darkly fitting that the topic of the film, the erasure of Palestinian communities, echoes the effort of the Miami Beach mayor to silence the programmatic freedom of the O Cinema.
Film is an art form, and art, like so many other forms of expression, has biases. Documentary film is not meant to be totally devoid of perspective– that’s what a free press is for. By insisting that the O Cinema show “fair and balanced perspectives,” the mayor is ignoring the artistic value of NO OTHER LAND. It won an Oscar this year without any support from a major studio or distributor– its peers voted on its artistic merit, perhaps the strongest validation of the documentary’s position as a work of art, not a work of objectivity. Meanwhile, it has been unfairly positioned against the Debra Messing-produced documentary OCTOBER 8, which opened last week in hundreds of theaters across the country despite being described as “far more nakedly propagandistic than No Other Land,” and having garnered not even close to the critical acclaim that NO OTHER LAND has.
Why does this matter for Maine? It matters because the ideology to suppress controversial topics is everywhere, not just in red states. Maine is hardly flying under the radar of the current administration’s overreach, as shown by the consequences of Governor Janet Mills standing up to President Trump at a governors’ meeting in February. NO OTHER LAND, without traditional US distribution with a streaming deal baked in, remains underseen in Maine: only a few cinemas have shown it or are currently showing it (see showtimes below!), and there’s no guarantee that it will make it to a streaming service or even be available to rent or buy on VOD. This means that if Mainers want to see this work of art and judge for themselves where its controversy lies, they need to see it at a movie theater.
If independent cinemas like the O Cinema in Miami Beach, The Gem in Bethel, or the Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta don’t assert their right to show artistically relevant independent film, films like NO OTHER LAND wouldn’t be produced. A good film should change you, and NO OTHER LAND definitely changed me when I saw it at the Portland Museum of Art. Mainers should have access to art that changes us, and local independent cinemas are instrumental in showing us a window into another land.
Have you seen this film? Tell me what you think in the comments.
See NO OTHER LAND in theaters:
PMA Films, Portland | Thursday March 27 at 3pm, Saturday March 29 at 12pm, and Saturday April 5 at 12pm.
Eveningstar Cinema, Brunswick | Friday March 28 at 7pm, Saturday March 29 at 1:30pm, and Sunday, March 30 at 4:15pm.
Lincoln Theater, Damariscotta | Thursday, March 27 at 2pm
Reel Pizza, Bar Harbor | Friday March 28 through Tuesday April 1 at 6:30pm
The Gem, Bethel | Friday March 28 through Monday March 31