The mayor of Miami Beach, Florida, is threatening to pull a local cinema’s lease over its screening of “No Other Land,” an Oscar-winning documentary about Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians from villages in the West Bank.
Mayor Steven Meiner last week sparked a row with O Cinema, the city’s only arthouse movie theater, urging its CEO Vivian Marthell against screening the documentary in a letter, calling the film “antisemitic” and “a one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people.”
“No Other Land” was filmed by two Palestinian and two Israeli directors. It follows the yearslong destruction of Palestinian activist and director Basel Adra’s hometown, Masafer Yatta, and other nearby villages by Israeli forces.
The film won this year’s Academy Award for best documentary feature. “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together, our voices are stronger,” director Yuval Abraham said while accepting the award on stage.
Despite Meiner’s letter last week, O Cinema, which is located in a city-owned building and counts the city as one of its supporters, moved forward with screening the film. The mayor has since introduced a proposal to terminate the theater’s lease and to rescind tens of thousands of dollars in grant funding. The city commission is scheduled to vote on Meiner’s proposal next week.
Civil rights groups have criticized the mayor’s campaign to ban the film and punish the cinema. Daniel Tilley, legal director of the ACLU’s Florida chapter, told Axios that Meiner’s actions are unconstitutional, adding, “The government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them.” Despite critical acclaim for “No Other Land,” the film has not been able to find a distributor in the U.S. due to what Abraham has characterized as “completely political” deliberations. Instead, the documentary has relied on independent bookings in theaters around the country. Four additional screenings of “No Other Land” at O Cinema next week have sold out.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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