Popular reviews

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  Review by KYK 5

  “Land you have to die for is yours, not land you have to kill for.” 
  I left this film with my heart absolutely shattered again, and inflamed with anger.

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½

  Basel Adra’s first memory is of Israeli soldiers raiding his house and arresting his father, a Palestinian activist who’s been fighting to preserve the small mountain community of Masafer Yatta since long before his son was born. Adra was only five years old at the time, but he can still remember the fear of that violation as if it only happened yesterday.

  In part, that’s because it did; raised in an occupied territory under Apartheid conditions, Adra has never known a life that wasn’t under threat of forced removal. But the freshness of his memory can also be attributed to the fact that Adra has never known a life that wasn’t being documented for his own protection. The most dehumanizing…

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  Review by SporkSpagel ★★★★★ 52

  I want to scream at every person who has told me that Israel-Palestine is just too complicated. That both sides have their reasons, and an outsider simply cannot understand or pick a side.

  I do not see any circumstance in which the systematic displacement of people and claiming of their land can be justified, making someone a second-rate citizen of their homeland, taking their water, electricity, and shelter, in case they may stand up to their oppressors.

  As a documentary, it is well paced, shot, and edited, but what truly makes it special is its deeply personal tale of resistance. Basel is his parents’ son through and through, the next in line in a family of activists, and it shows.…

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  Review by Iman Vellani ★★★★★ 16

  I wish my stomach would stop churning and I also wish every human being on this planet would make an effort to watch this film

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  Review by Sethsreviews 60

  perhaps the most important Oscar win in recent history. 

  One day, hopefully in our lifetime, Palestine will truly be free🇵🇸

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  Review by Pronit ★★★★½ 1

  They shouldn't forget how once, they too were weak.

  They suffered like this.

  And they won't succeed, with all their strength they will fail.

  They will never make Palestinians leave this land.

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  Review by Brandon Streussnig 1

  Many will come away from this feeling angry, justifiably so, but parroting the "it's complicated" line that they've heard time and time again. But it's not. It never was. The line has been clear to me for most of my conscious life and it never wavers. Palestine will be free. It must be free.

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  Review by zoë rose bryant ★★★★½ 2

  simultaneously a harrowing and unsparing depiction of the obscene horrors of the israeli occupation in palestine - horrors that have existed long before october 7, 2023 - and also a tremendously tender-hearted tribute to the pure love the palestinian people have for both each other and their land - the only land they’ve ever known. undeniably a gut-wrenching watch, and essentially so, but one that beautifully finds the balance between portraying both palestinian pain and their incredible perseverance under unspeakably inhumane conditions. a miracle of a movie in every sense of the word.

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  Review by Brother Bro ★★★★★ 3

  This is an intimate yet overwhelming document of ethnic cleansing taking place before our eyes. It's impossible not to feel the rage, frustration, and devastation of the abused villagers in the West Bank. And of course, it's easy to see the connective tissue between these incidents and the broader siege of Gaza, which takes place just after this story concludes.

  We don't just witness these atrocities, but come to know the journalists at the heart of the story. Friendship blossoms between journalists Yuval Abraham (an Israeli anti-Zionist activist) and Basel Adra (broadcasting the story of his own displacement). Just as images of schools being razed in front of students will long stay with me, so will Basel's candid and bleak remarks about his future as he nurses a hookah.

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  Review by mdfmdf ★★★★½ 3

  Watched at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

  Caterpillar is one of the companies that provides the bulldozers the IOF uses to destroy Palestinian homes, including the ones in Masafer Yatta. TIFF is sponsored by the Royal Bank of Canada, which happens to have $589 million of shares in Caterpillar, alongside $5 billion staked in weapons manufacturers arming Israel. After the movie’s introduction, a commercial for the bank played, followed by a land acknowledgement.

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  Review by Kit Lazer 6

  The only documentary Netflix won’t buy, apparently.

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  Review by john ★★★★½

  Fuck the IDF.