Assistive Technologies

Panorama: No Other Land

2hrs
Body

After the screening, join us for a discussion moderated by Boston Palestine Film Festival Programming Director Michael Maria. 

This eye-opening, vérité-style documentary, made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four directors over the course of five years, provides a harrowing account of the systematic onslaught of destruction experienced by Masafer Yatta, a group of Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank, at the hands of the Israeli military. 

Headed by Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham (also two of the film’s directors), the collective commits itself to filming and protesting the demolitions of homes and schools and the resulting displacement of their inhabitants, which were carried out to make way for Israeli military training ground. 

In addition to the indelible footage of destruction and expulsion captured by its undaunted witnesses, No Other Land serves as a moving portrait of friendship between Adra and Abraham, who form a philosophical and political alliance despite the drastic differences in their abilities to exist freely in this world.

About Michael Maria (Moderator)

Michael Maria is a Palestinian American, born and raised in Massachusetts, with ancestral roots hailing from Bethlehem, Palestine. He has served on the executive committee of the Boston Palestine Film Festival since 2011, acting as festival Programming Director, following initial responsibility as the festival Director of Operations. He leverages the powerful media of film and art to center Palestinian creative expression. Michael currently lives in Roslindale, MA with his family.  

About Salma Abu Ayyash (Panelist)

Salma is a Palestinian American, born in Jordan, and a Cambridge, MA resident. She's an engineer by training, an educator, and a social justice activist by disposition (and necessity). She is currently a pedagogical fellow at the Learning Incubator at Harvard University. Salma is passionate about collective liberation and is always inspired by and searching for ways to integrate the arts with activism. She is a founding member and former curator for the Boston Palestine Film Festivals, and a founding member of the Center for Arabic Culture. She is currently on the advisory board at Company One Theatre (formerly on their board of directors), and on the executive board of the Palestine Film Institute. 

About Leila Farsakh (Panelist)

Leila Farsakh is Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the editor of Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition (University of California Press, 2021), and author of Palestinian Labor Migration to Israel: Labour, Land and Occupation, (London: Routledge, second edition, 2012) among other works. Before joining academia, she has worked with a number of international organizations, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and UNDP in Jerusalem. Professor Farsakh was an editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies between 2008 and 2020 and is presently on the Board of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

Supported By

Films

1hr 35mins

Winner of Best Documentary at the 2024 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards.