The Israeli director of No Other Land has criticised a Florida mayor’s efforts to evict a local cinema after it screened his Oscar-winning documentary about Palestinian displacement in the West Bank, saying: “Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.”
Steven Meiner, the mayor of Miami Beach, has issued a draft resolution calling for the termination of the city’s lease agreement with O Cinema, and withdrawing $40,000 in promised grant funding for the nonprofit that runs the independent cinema.
In a newsletter sent to residents on Tuesday, Meiner condemned No Other Land as “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents” and accused it “of normalizing hate and … disseminating antisemitism”.
Meiner had previously urged the O Cinema to cancel scheduled screenings of the documentary, citing criticism from Israeli and German officials.
Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist and one of the documentary’s four directors who are all from Israel and Palestine, issued a statement to Deadline on Thursday.
“When the mayor uses the word antisemitism to silence Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality, he is emptying it out of meaning,” Abraham said. “I find that to be very dangerous. Censorship is always wrong.”
“We made this film to reach US audiences from a wide variety of political views. I believe that once you see the harsh reality of occupation in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, it becomes impossible to justify it, and that’s why the mayor is so afraid of No Other Land. It won’t work. Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.
According to Meiner’s newsletter, O Cinema’s CEO, Vivian Marthell, allegedly agreed to withdraw the film from programming, citing “concerns of antisemitic rhetoric”, but Meiner claimed she reversed her decision the following day. The screenings sold out and the cinema added additional dates in March.
“Our decision to screen No Other Land is not a declaration of political alignment. It is, however, a bold reaffirmation of our fundamental belief that every voice deserves to be heard,” Marthell told the Miami Herald.
Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, a Miami Beach commissioner, said she shared the mayor’s negative assessment of the film but cautioned against a “kneejerk reaction” that could trigger “costly legal battles”, and noted O Cinema’s “longstanding commitment to the Jewish community”.
The documentary, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature, follows the destruction of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank and chronicles the unlikely friendship between Abraham and Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who co-directed the film.
No Other Land is being self-distributed in the US after no distributors would pick it up, even after it won several awards and secured its Oscar nomination.
“We were told that people were afraid” of distributing a film critical of the Israeli government during the war with Gaza, Abraham previously told the Guardian – despite No Other Land being filmed in the West Bank, not Gaza, and finished before Hamas’ 7 October 2023 terror attack.
Meiner’s proposal to cancel the cinema’s lease is set for a commission vote next Wednesday.
