Yuval Abraham, one of the filmmakers behind the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” has criticized the Academy for not commenting on the attack of his Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal.
Ballal was released by Israeli authorities on Tuesday after Abraham wrote on X the day prior that he had gone missing after being attacked. “A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film ‘No Other Land,’” Abraham said. “They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since.”
Reports of Ballal’s attack and detainment sparked a petition calling for his release and statements from organizations like the International Documentary Association. On Wednesday, Abraham called out the Academy in a post on X for not speaking out.
“Sadly, the U.S. Academy, which awarded us an Oscar three weeks ago, declined to publicly support Hamdan Ballal while he was beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers and settlers,” he wrote. “The European Academy voiced support, as did countless other award groups and festivals. Several U.S. Academy members — especially in the documentary branch — pushed for a statement, but it was ultimately refused. We were told that because other Palestinians were beaten up in the settler attack, it could be considered unrelated to the film, so they felt no need to respond.”
Abraham continued: “In other words, while Hamdan was clearly targeted for making ‘No Other Land’ (he recalled soldiers joking about the Oscar as they tortured him), he was also targeted for being Palestinian — like countless others every day who are disregarded. This, it seems, gave the Academy an excuse to remain silent when a filmmaker they honored, living under Israeli occupation, needed them the most. It’s not too late to change this stance. Even now, issuing a statement condemning the attack on Hamdan and the Masafer Yatta community would send a meaningful message and serve as a deterrent for the future.”
The Academy did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.
Meanwhile, Ballal told ABC News from the hospital that he is “afraid,” adding: “I feel, when they attack me, I will lose my life.” Ballal told ABC News that he was severely beaten at the hands of Jewish settlers at his home on Monday, just outside the village of Susiya.
“It was a hard, hard attack,” Ballal told ABC News. “You know, I feel I will die, because this attack was so hard, I bleed from everywhere. I’m crying from deeply in my heart. I feel pain everywhere in my body. So, they continue attacking me like 15-20 minutes.” Ballal also confirmed the presence of “soldiers with guns.”
An Israeli police statement said that Ballal and other Palestinians were incarcerated “on conditions that include not contacting other people involved and self-bail.”
There were also allegations of stone throwing, which Ballal denies. “I didn’t throw stones, I didn’t do any problems with the settlers,” Ballal told ABC News. “The settlers came attacking me and beating me. That’s it.”
According to the Associated Press, Ballal was “held at an army base, blindfolded for 24 hours and forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.”
“All my body is pain,” Ballal told AP. “I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me… I heard ‘Oscar’ but I didn’t speak Hebrew.”
The Associated Press reported that activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence saw Ballal get beat up by Israeli settlers on the scene, describing that “a group of 10-20 masked settlers attacked him and other Jewish activists with stones and sticks, and smashed their car windows and slashed their tires.”
On Tuesday, a group of global filmmakers including Alex Gibney and Christine Vachon signed a petition for Ballal’s release, saying that “Ballal was forcibly removed by the Israeli army from an ambulance following a brutal attack by settlers, and subsequently detained without clear information regarding his whereabouts.”
As the petition was gathering steam with more than 4,500 signatures, Abraham posted on X that Ballal had been freed. “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,” Abraham posted on X on Tuesday.
“No Other Land,” made by an Israeli-Palestinian collective including Abraham, Ballal, Basel Adra and Rachel Szor, follows a Palestinian family living in the West Bank as their home gets destroyed by the Israeli government and they face displacement. But amidst the dire conditions, Adra and Abraham, an Israeli journalist, form an unexpected friendship and work together to document the story.
The film first premiered at last year’s Berlin Film Festival, where it earned top documentary jury and audience prizes. The documentary continued to earn critical acclaim attention on the fall festival circuit, where it played at the Toronto, Vancouver and New York film festivals. Despite this, the film still doesn’t have a U.S. distributor, leading the filmmakers to self-release the film in New York City on Jan. 31 and Los Angeles on Feb. 7.