Film stars blast Oscars Academy for ‘failing to defend’ Palestinian film-maker
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Palestinian film-maker Hamdan Ballal with his Oscar for No Other Land in his village of Susya, in the south of the occupied West Bank, on March 26.
PHOTO: AFP
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LOS ANGELES – Movie stars including Joaquin Phoenix, Penelope Cruz and Richard Gere have blasted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for failing to defend an Oscar-winning Palestinian film-maker, who said he was attacked by Israeli settlers.
Hamdan Ballal co-directed No Other Land, which won best documentary at the 2025 Academy Awards. This week, he said he had been assaulted by settlers and detained at gunpoint
Unlike multiple other prominent film-maker groups, the academy initially did not issue a statement.
On March 26, it sent a letter to members that condemned “harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints”, without naming Ballal.
By March 28, more than 600 academy members had signed their own statement in response.
“It is indefensible for an organisation to recognise a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its film-makers just a few weeks later,” the members said. “We stand in condemnation of the brutal assault and unlawful detention of Oscar-winning Palestinian film-maker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank.”
The academy leadership’s response “fell far short of the sentiments this moment calls for”, they added.
The Los Angeles-based group’s board convened an extraordinary meeting on March 28 to confront the deepening crisis, according to trade outlet Deadline. The academy did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
No Other Land chronicles the forced displacement of Palestinians by Israeli troops and settlers in Masafer Yatta – an area Israel declared a restricted military zone in the 1980s. Despite winning the coveted Oscar, the film has struggled to find a major US distributor.
Following the March 24 incident, Ballal said the “brutality” of the attack “made me feel it was because I won the Oscar”.
During his detention at an Israeli military centre, he claimed he noticed soldiers mentioning his name alongside the word “Oscar” during shift changes. He was released on March 25, after being detained the previous day for allegedly “hurling rocks”.
Yuval Abraham, who also co-directed and appears in the documentary, has criticised the academy – both for its initial silence, and then for its subsequent statement.
“After our criticism, the academy’s leaders sent out this e-mail to members explaining their silence on Hamdan’s assault: they need to respect ‘unique viewpoints’,” he wrote on X, sharing a screenshot of the academy’s letter. AFP
