Director West Bank nominated for an Oscar says the “Movies” can be part of the change “

The Palestinian and Israelis sit in the village of the West Coast at night.

They wonder aloud if Basel will ever be able to freely visit the Yuval’s home in Israel, whether Basel’s village will receive a building permit and whether one day he will have stability.

For years, friends have been recording the destruction of houses, wells and the Israeli army school after declaring the Basel community illegal. They tell each other that they hope to change that reality.

Now that scene has reached some of the world’s biggest stages.

The film containing in no other country is not nominated for Oscar and Bafta for the best documentation role.

The following is a fight around Masafer Yatte, a community of about 20 villages and friendship between Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham.

In the film, Basel was almost detained after the protest, his father was arrested and the soldier shoots a member of the community in his neck while seized by a generator, leading to man’s paralysis and death.

“It’s scary because yes, the movie succeeds and people are aware of it, but I don’t think there are enough actions, especially among those who have the power to change that,” Yuval told the BBC.

“I have no illusion that movies will change the world, but I know I can change individuals, and I know I can be part of a bigger change, and we really need that now.”

Basel and Yuval created the movie together with Hamdan Ballala and Rachel with over five years.

Asked about a man who was paralyzed, IDF said his investigation had not found a crime. A spokesman said that during surgery against the “illegal building”, two Palestinians grabbed a soldier because of their weapon and vest, which led to shooting.

Palestinian eyewitnesses said to Israeli media They were not contacted as part of the initial investigation and believed that the shot was intentionally fired.

Israel has occupied the west coast since 1967. Israeli settlements in the territory are considered illegal to international law, although Israel disputes it. They have expanded in the last 55 years, becoming the focal point of violence and conflicting claims over the earth.

On October 7, 2023. Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. This launched an Israeli military campaign that killed at least 47,500 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

Since then, Violence related to the settler On the west coast increased, with 13 Palestinians killed by immigrants, according to the UN.

More than 850 Palestinians, many of whom are militants, the Israeli troops on the West Coast have killed in the same period, says the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The UN says 30 Israelites were killed in this time frame by Palestinians on the west coast.

2023. UN recorded About 1,420 incident of Israeli Violence of settlers – the largest number that allegedly led to victims, property damage or both, since the records began in 2006.

Additional attacks on Palestinians have taken place since the return of US President Donald Trump to power, Basel said, and the filmmakers were afraid that this could be worse.

Trump has abolished the sanctions made by Biden’s administration on some immigrants. President’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said Israel has a “title” West Coast and “There is no such” as a profession or settlement.

When asked on Tuesday if he agreed that now they should recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Coast, Trump said He still needed to take a position, but he would announce the announcement in four weeks.

The discussion of Masafer Yatta began in the 1980s when Israel declared an area with a closed military zone of shooting, which means that no one was allowed to live there.

According to Notes from the 1981 meetingThe then Israeli Agricultural Minister Ariel Sharon offered military additional training fields to limit “the spread of Arab peasants from the hill to the desert”.

Israel claimed that the inhabitants had not previously lived there permanently. The Palestinian population took over their case to the Supreme Court of Israel, claiming that the communities lived there for generations and pointing to a map of 1945, which shows some villages.

In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Israel and enabled the demolition of homes and expulsion of more than 1,000 villagers.

The scenes from the movie show a bulldozer that destroyed the elementary school, a truck that poured the mud into a well, and the machines that destroyed the house while the locals face the army.

The girl is crying, and when her mother wonders if there is another place to leave, she says, “We have no other country.”

The documentary also records intimate human moments, as when a mother, who moved into the cave, kissed her daughter and tells her, “You are my love … tomorrow will be a new day.”

The film also explores Basel and Yuval’s friendship. Although they are about the same age and share similar values, their inequality is always present.

While Yuval can travel freely to Israel and the west coast, Basel cannot travel to Israel without permission, as part of what he says they are security measures.

In the movie, Basel regrets that even though he studied the law, he could only find work in construction in Israel, and when he thinks too much about it, “I feel this huge depression.”

The movie does not turn to the tension created by Yuval’s identity, and one Palestinian asked him, “How can we stay friends, when you come here, and that could be your brother or friend who destroyed my home?”

Yuval said that he felt “responsibility for what was happening to the Basel community,” because “at the end of the day, fuel in bulldozers is my tax money.”

Last year, Yuval faced a return reaction for his speech about accepting for the best documentary at the Berlin Film Festival, along with Basel, in which he criticized the “Apartheid situation” and invited the gaza truce.

American filmmaker Ben Russell, who was there and wore Palestinian Keffiyeh scarf, said he stood against the “genocide” in Gaza. Israel strongly denies a genocide allegation.

German Culture Minister Claudia Roth The statements said They were “shocking one -sided and characterized by a deep hatred of Israel,” while Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner Posted on social media that it was “unbearable relativization” and that “anti -Semitism has no place in Berlin.”

Israeli public show Called Yuval’s Comments Antisemitic.

Yuval, who said he had received death threats, said the BBC that he was “very angry” on the label, which “emptied this mandate of meaning at a time when anti -Semitism rises on the right wing and on the left wing.”

He said it was “absurd” to hear criticism when most of his family was killed in the Holocaust, adding that learning from this history “should be told to fight against dehumanization … no matter who the victim is.”

Despite winning several international awards, no other country in the US is separated in the US because it has not found an official distributor-often for a documentary that was nominated for an Oscar.

One of the last scenes of the movie is from October 13, 2023, when Basel recorded the settlers by shooting his cousin, whose hands in the stomach appear empty. In other shots, the settlers throw the rocks to the houses as the soldiers watch.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said the shooting case was transferred to the State Attorney’s Office, to which the BBC approached the comment.

Current in Masafer Yatta,, Basel said settlers have “Unlimited power” and exists “Daily level of harassment.”

He said that in January there were three mainstays of settlers, including a 72-year-old man taken to the hospital after being hit in the head of the sticks, and about 15 people arrested in two days before January 30 while they fell out of sheep or chased the sheep. Israeli police did not respond to the BBC a comment request.

The UK has sanctioned three exhibitions and four organizations that he says they support violence against the western coast communities. Yuval urged the UK to sanction all immigrants, believing that “it would truly be a deterrent.”

A spokesman for the Foreign Affairs said the BBC that the Foreign Minister “with Israeli ministers was clear that they had to suppress themselves on the violence of the settlers and the extension of the settlement.”

“We have regularly taken measures against the violence of immigrants, including targeted sanctions, and we will continue to do everything we can to ensure the protection of the Palestinians’ rights and are responsible for violence on accounts,” the statement said.

Yuval said, “I really believe that there is no other way forward, except to achieve a righteous, honest political solution in which Palestinians can be free, truly free, and our people, both, will have safety and self -determination.

“It really makes me angry, not only my government goes another way, but also for the world to allow this to happen for so long.”

In the movie, Basel remembers a seven-minute visit to Tony Blair to his village, after which Israel canceled the demolition commands there.

“This is a story about power,” he says.

Now Basel gets “the strength and power of the people around me,” making him want not to give up.

“One drop in water does not change,” he says during the protest in the movie, “but keep going down the water and that will change.”