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academy awards
Israel Releases Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian Filmmaker Beaten by Settlers
"After being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family," said No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham.
Mar 25, 2025
Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who earlier this month won an Academy Award for No Other Land—a documentary about ethnic cleansing in the illegally occupied West Bank—was released from Israel Defense Forces custody Tuesday after being brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and violently detained by army troops.
Yuval Abraham, one of two Israeli co-directors of No Other Land, said on the social media site X that "after being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family."
On Monday, Israeli settlers attacked the village of Susya in the southern Hebron Hills, injuring numerous residents and activists, according to Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan, who posted video of the assault. Members of the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence who went to Susya to document the attack said they were assaulted by settlers who smashed their car windows, punched them, and hit them with sticks.
"The sickening reality is this is what many Palestinians face and we don't even hear about it."
Abraham said that settlers beat Ballal, injuring his head and stomach. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers then "invaded the ambulance he called" and seized Ballal, according to Abraham.
Lamia Ballal, the filmmaker's wife, toldThe Associated Press that she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with their rifles and another person in civilian clothing who appeared to be recording the attack.
"Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more," she said. "I felt afraid."
The IDF claimed that Ballal and two other Palestinians were detained on suspicion of throwing rocks during the settler attack. One Israeli was also detained.
Lea Tsemel, an attorney for the three detained Palestinians, said the men spent the night on the floor of a military base and received the bare minimum of medical care.
Responding to Monday's events, Basel Adra, No Other Land's second Palestinian co-director, said that "this is how they erase Masafer Yatta," the collection of 19 West Bank hamlets whose ongoing ethnic cleansing is documented in the film.
The international film industry led condemnation of Ballal's detention and demands for his release.
"Such treatment of an internationally acclaimed filmmaker gravely undermines artistic freedom, human rights, and freedom of speech—core values vital to democratic societies," a Change.org petition by "members of the global film community" said.
The Berlin Film Festival, where No Other Land premiered and won best documentary last year, called Ballal's ordeal "very distressing" in a Tuesday Instagram post.
"It is vital in open democracies that we safeguard the role of journalism and documentary filmmaking and protect its makers from reprisal and violence," the organization said.
U.S. actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, a longtime Palestine defender,
wrote on Instagram: "Every filmmaker and Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] member should be acting together in protest. No matter where you stand on this issue this is an attack on our beloved art form of filmmaking. Hamdan Ballal is a political prisoner and this is an international incident and violation of human rights."
"Many of us are not surprised by this behavior from the lawless settlers and the IDF at this point," Ruffalo added. "Kill[ing] journalists and abducting filmmakers is not an accident but a design for the eradication of a people and their culture. Free Ballal!"
Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem for 58 years. Today, more than 700,000 Israelis live in over 140 settlements built and expanded on Palestinian land. Last year, the International Court of Justice—which is hearing a genocide case against Israel led by South Africa—issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately.
Assaults on Palestinians by Israeli settlers, who are protected and sometimes joined by IDF troops, have increased dramatically since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel led by Gaza-based Hamas, with more than 900 West Bank residents killed and thousands more wounded over the past 17 months,
according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
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Filmmaker Jonathan Glazer Speaks Out Against Israel's Hijacking of Holocaust to Justify Gaza War
"Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst," said Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest.
Mar 11, 2024
The 96th annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening were marked by a number of statements—some vocal and some sartorial—in favor of Palestinian rights and against Israel's occupation and bombardment of Gaza, with filmmaker Jonathan Glazer directly addressing Zionists who have "hijacked" the Holocaust to justify relentless attacks on civilians.
Glazer accepted the award for Best International Feature Film for The Zone of Interest, his film about a Nazi commander who lives with his family just outside the walls of Auschwitz concentration camp, where gunshots and other sounds of the extermination of Jewish prisoners are audible from the commander's garden.
Glazer and producer James Wilson were adamant as they accepted the award that The Zone of Interest should not be viewed as a film about past events, but one that was "made to reflect and confront us in the present."
"Not to say, 'Look what they did then,' rather 'Look what we do now,'" said the director. "Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst."
"We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict, for so many innocent people.”
'Zone of Interest' director Jonathan Glazer spoke out about Israel's weaponisation of the Holocaust in his Oscar… pic.twitter.com/SM9JfhxvrO
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) March 11, 2024
Glazer then noted that both he and Wilson are among many Jewish people who object to the Israeli government's perennial claim—supported by Western countries including the U.S.—that Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and subjugation of Palestinian people is necessary to provide Jewish people with safety from the kind of persecution that ultimately led to the Holocaust.
"Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people," continued Glazer. "Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization—how do we resist?"
Glazer's comments were immediately decontextualized by right-wing commentators including Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, who claimed the director displayed "moral rot" by telling the audience he refuted "his Jewishness."
"You're lying about what they said by adding a period in the middle of their sentence,"
said Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the Jewish-led Palestinian rights group IfNotNow, which has frequently been accused of antisemitism by pro-Israel groups for objecting to Israeli apartheid. "They clearly meant they refute the way their Jewishness has been hijacked. You're supposed to be a journalist."
The Israeli group Breaking the Silence (BtS), run by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces who now object to the occupation, compared the outraged reaction to Glazer's speech to the aftermath of Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham's comments at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he spoke out against the subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Abraham was immediately denounced as antisemitic by Israeli media and received death threats, while the German government announced it would open an investigation into the filmmaker's comments.
"These 'misunderstandings' aren't new," said BtS regarding the response of Ungar-Sargon and others.
"It's possible to oppose the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and still care for the safety of Israeli hostages," added the group. "One can worry about Israelis who were evacuated from their homes after October 7 and still be horrified by the conditions in which so many are currently living in Gaza. We refuse to let this harsh reality make us less human, and that we refuse to accept the ease with which the blood and lives of civilians is used as a justification for political ideologies, or as a bargaining chip. Empathy is not a zero-sum game."
Other than Glazer's speech, most commentary about Israel's assault on Gaza—now in its sixth month and having killed at least 31,045 Palestinians as the Israeli government blocks nearly all humanitarian aid from reaching the population—was made through Oscar attendees' clothing choices.
Several actors and filmmakers wore red pins in support of Artists4Ceasefire, which toldThe Hill that members showed "collective support for an immediate and permanent cease-fire, the release of all of the hostages, and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza."
Musician Billie Eilish, director Ava DuVernay, and actors including Ramy Youssef, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, and Mahershala Ali were among those who wore the red pins.
Billie Eilish, Ramy Youssef, Ava DuVernay and other celebrities wore red pins at the Oscars in support for a cease-fire in Gaza. The design featured a single hand holding a heart and was organized by the group Artists4Ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/sj6HBzsoYi
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 11, 2024
"We're all calling for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza," Youssef told reporters. "We're calling for the safety of everyone involved, and we really want lasting justice and peace for the Palestinian people... We really want to say, just stop killing children."
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What the Academy Awards Tell Us About the Value of Black Work
Feb 28, 2016
What's the value of an Academy Award?
It's a question I've been mulling over ever since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences--the revered gatekeepers of America's film industry--announced the nominees for their 88th Academy Awards ceremony, also known as the Oscars. In a bold feat of tone-deafness (read: overt racism), the Academy chose not to nominate a single Black actor in any of their four acting categories--again.
I wasn't surprised by the Academy's casual racism in refusing to recognize Black performers at this year's ceremony. Hollywood's diversity problems aren't new. The fact that there are still people who blithely question whether Black performances are even worthy of recognition speaks to the existence of pervasive bigotry within the institution. It's why Black people (along with other historically marginalized communities) have banded together to create our own institutions to recognize our work: without celebrations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Awards--and yes, even the BET Awards--daring to uplift Black performers in Hollywood, where else could we go to applaud and honor our stars?
What did surprise me was how some high-profile individuals like Helen Mirren, instead of grappling with the issue of the Academy's accountability to Black actors, blamed this year's lack of Black nominees on broader race and power dynamics within the industry. The Academy's lack of racial sensitivity, she argued, is a symptom of a deeply engrained culture of racial bias that disadvantages Black professionals; as a result, one should not read racist intent into the Academy's nomination decisions.
It isn't entirely wrong to deflect blame onto the wider industry. As many have rightly pointed out, industry diversity starts in the boardrooms, where casting and business decisions get made. But in our hurry to write off the Oscars' diversity problems as the logical byproduct of Hollywood's ubiquitous racism, we shouldn't dismiss the Academy's distinct responsibility to recognize Black artists. More than mere pageantry, the Oscars award ceremony represents an issue of economic justice because of its role as a public evaluation of people in the film industry. Neither the Academy nor the Oscars operate in a vacuum; the Oscars are where Hollywood ascribes value to the artistic and cultural experiences that move and define us and, by proxy, the performers who embody these stories.
Moreover, the awards aren't just a competition for cultural value: they double as an assessment tool that helps pick the industry's economic winners and losers--in full view of the adoring public. While mainstream recognition from an institution like the Academy is not necessary to validate the contributions and experiences of Black performers, it still carries significant implications for the economic realities of the movie industry. Because the vast majority of Black artists don't receive the same opportunities for exposure as their white counterparts, they aren't given access to the same springboard that launches other workers in the industry. For the working actor, the value of an Academy Award is concrete: increased exposure to the best directors, casting agents, and managers, combined with greater leverage for higher pay and more favorable working conditions. Even receiving a nomination can make booking the next job and sustaining a career easier.
And as resilient as Black people are--Black entertainers especially--it is not enough for us to create spaces where we validate our work if those spaces do not wield the same access to economic opportunities. Dismantling systemic racism goes hand-in-hand with ending economic inequality, and it's imperative to the liberation of Black people that we tackle them in tandem. And so, we must fight for inclusion in mainstream spaces where our economic futures are at stake and create spaces for Black achievement to be validated in a way that honors and respects us.
The whitewashing of the Academy Awards presents a unique economic challenge to Black performers and other Black workers in the industry. In addition to shaking our fists at the intersecting systems of oppression that permeate Hollywood, we must call equal attention to the Academy's actions--precisely because they speak to a larger ethos for how Black work and Blackness go unrecognized and devalued within the film and more significant entertainment industry.
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