“Their open letter states that punishing O Cinema for screening No Other Land is an assault on freedom of expression.”
More than 600 members of the international filmmaking community, including Michael Moore, Barry Jenkins, Marisa Tomei, Ezra Edelman, and Phil Lord, have signed an open letter to the Mayor and City Commission of Miami Beach, criticizing their proposed censorship of No Other Land.
We, the undersigned members of the international filmmaking community, write to express our deep concern and condemnation of your attempts to censor O Cinema, a local independent movie theater, for its exhibition of the Academy Award-winning documentary, ‘No Other Land,’ by withholding its funding and ending its lease,
the Monday letter readsAdvertisement
O Cinema has a long history of supporting important and diverse viewpoints that foster dialogue. We as filmmakers invite critical discussion of any film, but your decision to punish O Cinema for screening ‘No Other Land’ is an attack on freedom of expression, the right of artists to tell their stories and a violation of the First Amendment,” it continues. “It is also an offense to the people of Miami Beach, and Greater Miami as a whole, who deserve to have access to a diverse range of films and perspectives.
We urge you to reconsider your decision and to allow O Cinema to continue to operate without interference.
The message concludes,
The letter comes just two days before the city votes on O Cinema’s lease agreement, a decision sparked by the theater’s choice to screen the documentary by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor. The film, which won Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2025 Oscars, follows the displacement of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta by Israeli military and settlers after a court ruling designated the area as a “closed military zone.”
Read More: No Other Land Director Calls Florida Mayor’s Campaign Against His Film ‘Very Dangerous’
On Sunday, the International Documentary Association and the independent cinema coalition Art House Convergence released a joint statement condemning Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner for threatening to revoke the lease and withhold more than $40,000 in city grant funding.
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner, who is Jewish, initially sent a letter to O Cinema CEO Vivian Marthell, urging her to cancel the screenings and calling the film “a one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people.”
“My initial reaction to Mayor Meiner’s threats was made under duress,” Marthell told the Associated Press on Thursday after initially agreeing to pull the film. “After reflecting on the broader implications for free speech and O Cinema’s mission, I (along with the O Cinema board and staff members) agreed it was critical to screen this acclaimed film.”
In response, Meiner wrote, “Normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach, after O Cinema conceded the ‘concerns of antisemitic rhetoric,’ is unjust to the values of our city and residents and should not be tolerated.”
PEN America’s Florida director, Katie Blankenship, also criticized the city’s actions, calling their tactics “blatantly unconstitutional.”
No Other Land is the first Best Documentary Feature winner at the Academy Awards to win without a U.S. distributor. Its release has been managed independently, with bookings arranged on a theater-by-theater basis.