Episode 3: Documentary Filmmaking as an Act of Resistance

NO OTHER LAND (Best Documentary Berlinale 2024) Co-directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham and KAMAY (Interreligious Award Visions du Réel 2024) director Ilyas Yourish discuss how their films and the act of filmmaking itself have become not only an act of resistance against war and brutality, but a means of survival, memory-keeping, re-writing official narratives and understanding of identity.

NO OTHER LAND, created by a collective of Palestinians and Israelis (Rachel Szor, Hamdan Balal, Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra), tells Basel’s own story as he films his community of Masafer Yatta, in the West bank, being destroyed by Israeli soldiers and the unlikely friendship he develops with an Israeli journalist, Yuval, who wants to join his fight.

KAMAY is set in the remote mountains of central Afghanistan, as a Hazara family embarks on a journey for truth and justice after their daughter Zahra mysteriously dies at Kabul University. In his poetic and poignant film, her sister Freshta narrates countless hours on the road, administrative and technological obstacles to justice. The film is a moving contemplation of love, loss, and perseverance in spite of increasing unrest on the eve of the Taliban takeover of the country.