‘No one’s been willing to take a risk’: are Palestinian films still struggling to get seen?
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Version 1 of 4. As a genocide continues, the road to audiences has been smoother for Israeli films while Palestinians must get inventive Palestinian film-makers on their favorite Palestinian movies: ‘I felt like I was watching my own story’ This March, two documentaries on the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks reached theaters within days of each other. One, called October 8, focused on the “emergence of antisemitism on college campuses, on social media and on the streets” after Hamas forces killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians. The film, executive-produced by Debra Messing, was widely released by Briarcliff Entertainment, a maverick distribution studio that has also handled Trump biopic The Apprentice and Jamal Khashoggi documentary The Dissident; Messing promoted the film on mainstream programs such as MSNBC’s Morning Joe. It ultimately grossed more than $1.3m domestically, a high total for a political documentary. The other film, The Encampments, faced a tougher road. A documentary on campus protests against Israel’s retaliatory destruction of Gaza, focusing in part on activist Mahmoud Khalil – by then detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) for his activism – got no celebrity morning show promotion. Its specialty release at New York’s Angelika theater led to threats of violence, an incident of vandalism in the theater’s lobby and social media censorship of its ads. That it was released at all – and made $80,000 in its opening weekend, a significant win for the specialty box office – is due to Watermelon Pictures, an upstart, Palestinian American-led film-financing and -distribution company founded by brothers Hamza and Badie Ali to help films with Palestinian perspectives reach audiences they otherwise would not, in a market that has otherwise ignored or deprioritized them. The two documentaries evince the different landscapes for Israeli and Palestinian narratives in the US – one concentrated and often backed by more mainstream institutions, the other fractured and more ad hoc, yet growing. The two-year anniversary of the 7 October attacks throws the contrast into sharper relief – this weekend marks the limited release of The Road Between Us, Barry Avrich’s documentary following retired Israeli general Noam Tibon’s efforts to save his son’s family from Hamas forces on 7 October. A gripping Taken-like tale of survival, trauma and mourning that does not mention Israel’s subsequent killing of at least 66,000 Palestinians in retaliation, The Road Between Us received support from celebrities like Messing and Amy Schumer, and won the People’s Choice Award for best documentary at the Toronto film festival. US distribution rights were quickly snapped up by Forston Consulting. It’s difficult to get any hot-button, politically challenging film financed, let alone released in the US, especially under the second Trump administration. But films featuring Palestinian perspectives, or films challenging the narrative of a government that has turned the horrors of 7 October into a weapon of war justifying an internationally recognized genocide in Gaza, have found it especially challenging, sometimes impossible, to reach audiences. “I’ve never made a film about Palestine that’s ever been distributed,” said Amber Fares, the director of Coexistence, My Ass!, a documentary about Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi confronting her upbringing as “the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process” in the wake of the near-complete destruction of Gaza. With an acclaimed festival run, Fares, who is Lebanese Canadian, had hopes for a distribution deal for Coexistence, My Ass! “We thought that there could be a chance that Coexistence could break through just based on Noam and what she stands for (–) it’s such a unique way of looking at the issue,” Fares said. But deals never worked out; the team ultimately opted for a self-release strategy starting later this month, handled by the same company that arranged No Other Land’s self-release earlier this year. That film, a searing documentary by an Israeli-Palestinian collective about generational efforts to resist occupation in a small West Bank community, won a bittersweet Oscar for best documentary; weeks later, Israeli settlers severely beat co-director Hamdan Ballal, who was then arrested by soldiers allegedly mocking the award. It’s still not available for streaming in the US but made more than $2.5m at the US box office (making it the highest grossing of the year’s Oscar-nominated docs). All That’s Left of You, a sweeping epic on three generations of a Palestinian family displaced in 1948, also sought distribution out of a strong festival run, but ran into concern from distributors over the “subject matter”. “We had high hopes that one mainstream distributor would come through,” said Palestinian American director Cherien Dabis. One conversation with an unnamed company ended, according to Dabis, with a pass, citing too many films on their slate. “That’s exactly what they told another Palestinian film that more recently premiered at a festival. It all feels like political cowardice,” she said. The reality, according to Watermelon co-founder Hamza Ali, is that “there are not a lot of distributors that are going to support Palestinian films”. Major streaming companies have steered clear. But Paramount recently acquired the global streaming rights to Red Alert, a four-part scripted series produced in part by the Israel Entertainment Fund, which depicts the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel that, per the logline, “turned southern Israel into a war zone, testing humanity and forging heroism through chaos”. Paramount CEO and chair David Ellison touted the series as evidence of the company’s “continued commitment to storytelling through artistic excellence and accuracy”. And HBO Max acquired the US rights for One Day in October, a scripted series based on first-hand accounts of the attack that will debut on its second anniversary. Meanwhile, “I don’t think a single Palestinian film has ever gotten mainstream distribution in the US”, said Dabis, who has since formed her own distribution company, Visibility Films, in wake of the roadblocks. “No one’s really been willing to take a risk on proving that these films could be seen widely.” “It’s unfortunate that we haven’t had that same support,” said Hamza Ali. “Not a single film of ours has been picked up by a mainstream streamer.” Still, “the industry is definitely shifting”, he said, pointing to the recent pledge signed by more than 3,900 prominent entertainment figures to not work with Israeli film institutions “implicated in genocide and apartheid” against Palestinians, adding: “But it seems, unfortunately, like the streamers are not following suit.” (Liev Schreiber, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Messing were among the celebrities who signed a rebuke calling the pledge a “document of misinformation”; several cited Israel’s Oscar submission of The Sea, a film about a Palestinian boy who tries to visit the beach for the first time but is denied entry at a checkpoint. Notably, Israel’s version of the Oscars is facing government defunding after The Sea won the top prize.) A new wave of Palestinian-led, challenging films is finally beginning to crest even without major corporate backing – Watermelon signed on with Dabis’s Visibility Films to co-distribute All That’s Left of You, Jordan’s official submission to the Oscars, which will begin its limited theatrical release in January; Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem joined as executive producers. Watermelon also represents Palestine’s official Oscar submission, generational epic Palestine 36, and is executive producer on Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, which drew rave reviews and a major award at Venice; that film, which reconstructs the killing of a five-year-old girl in Gaza with her real voice, will be distributed in Europe by The Party Film Sales, and has yet to find US distribution. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, Sepideh Farsi’s essay-film on the killing of Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, along with six of her family members, by an IDF airstrike in Gaza this April, will open in New York in November, with an expansion to follow. With both opportunities and opposition, the hope is to demonstrate, as The Encampments and No Other Land have before, that there is a market for films that challenge the long-standing narrative of Palestinian violence or erasure. “There’s this quandary where no one has proven that there’s an audience for these films,” said Dabis. “But that’s simply because no one has taken a chance on these films. So how can you know if there’s an audience or not an audience? And how could there not be an audience right now when we’re watching a livestreamed genocide?” “I absolutely know there’s an audience,” said Fares, referring to both Coexistence, My Ass!, as well as Palestine 36, All That’s Left of You, The Voice of Hind Rajab and No Other Land. “I don’t know if there’s been another time when there’s just been so much interest, and also gatekeeping, where people have to seek these films out.” |