Oscar-winning No Other Land filmmaker Yuval Abraham is continuing to call out the Oscar Academy for its response to the violent settler attack on Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal and his subsequent detention by the Israeli military earlier this week.
Abraham, an Israeli director who had already criticized the Academy for not publicly supporting Ballal after his arrest, has now taken issue with a letter sent to Academy members on Wednesday. The letter, co-signed by Bill Kramer and Janet Yang, appeared to address the incident, condemning “harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints.” However, it also emphasized that the Academy represents “close to 11,000 global members with many unique viewpoints.”
Abraham criticized the letter.
After our criticism, the academy’s leaders sent out this email to members explaining their silence on Hamdan’s assault: they need to respect ‘unique viewpoints’,
wrote Abraham in an X post
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He also pointed out that, unlike a previous statement supporting persecuted Iranian director Jafar Panahi, the letter did not mention Ballal by name.
Compare this to the Academy’s rightfully strong position when it’s the Iranian government oppressing filmmakers,
he wrote, sharing an excerpt from the letter addressing Panahi’s 2010 detention.
In an incident witnessed by multiple people and captured on video, Ballal was attacked by Israeli settlers in his home village of Susiya on Tuesday evening. He was then arrested by
Israeli soldiers and detained overnight at a military base. The filmmaker later shared that he feared for his life.
The attack occurred less than a month after Ballal was honored at the 97th Academy Awards in L.A., where No Other Land won Best Documentary. He received the award alongside co-directors Abraham, Palestinian filmmaker and activist Basel Adra, and Israeli cinematographer, editor, and director Rachel Szor.
Source: Deadline