DUBAI: While promoting his latest film, “The History of Sound,” at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Irish actor Paul Mescal took a moment to spotlight the Palestinian documentary “No Other Land.”
In a heartfelt statement, Mescal shared his experience watching the film in a packed Brooklyn theater, expressing profound upset over its limited distribution. He emphasized the importance of amplifying Palestinian voices and stories, highlighting the film's portrayal of the destruction of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.
“I remember sitting there in a packed-out theater in Brooklyn and just being so profoundly upset that the film hadn’t, at that point, I still don’t know if it has received distribution there. Having a cultural moment like that with a film like that, which is so wildly upsetting to see in a room. The story that I feel like needed to be told the most was being censored, it felt like almost. And the feeling in the room was one of great fear and sadness and it felt like the film was bigger than the four walls in which we were watching it,” he said.
“No Other Land,” the story of Palestinian activists fighting to protect their communities from demolition by the Israeli military, won the Oscar for best documentary earlier this year.
The film’s co-directors, Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham used their speeches to call for an end to the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
The film follows activist Adra as he risks arrest to document the destruction of his hometown, which Israeli soldiers are tearing down to use as a military training zone.
