The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has convened an extraordinary meeting to address a crisis over its tepid response to the arrest and detention of Oscar-winning director Hamdan Ballal, of the documentary No Other Land, by Israeli authorities.
The meeting on Friday morning Pacific time, first reported by Deadline, follows a strongly worded letter signed by many prominent members – including actors Olivia Colman, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, Penélope Cruz and Emma Thompson, directors Ava DuVernay, Alfonso Cuarón, Adam McKay and Jonathan Glazer and writer Tony Kushner – calling for a more forceful response from the Academy’s board of governors than an initial statement that did not refer to Ballal or No Other Land by name and cited the Academy membership’s “many unique viewpoints.”
“We stand in condemnation of the brutal assault and unlawful detention of Oscar-winning Palestinian film-maker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank,” reads the letter, published by Deadline. “As artists, we depend on our ability to tell stories without reprisals. Documentary film-makers often expose themselves to extreme risks to enlighten the world.”
The letter further stated that “it is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its film-makers just a few weeks later”.
Ballal, one of four directors – all from Israel or Palestine – of the film crowned best documentary at the Oscars on 2 March, was beaten by Israeli settlers on Monday outside his home in the village of Susya, in the Masafer Yatta area of the West Bank, and detained by Israeli forces. He told the Guardian that he was beaten with explicit reference to No Other Land, which documents the Israeli military’s repeated attempts to evict Palestinians in Masafer Yatta and was condemned by Israel’s culture minister. “It was a revenge for our movie,” he said. “I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me … I heard [the word] ‘Oscar’.”
After facing criticism from the film’s co-director Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, for not speaking up in Ballal’s defense, the Academy president, Janet Yang. and the CEO, Bill Kramer, issued a statement on Wednesday that did not reference Ballal or the film by name. The statement condemned “harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints”. It went on to say: “We are living in a time of profound change, marked by conflict and uncertainty – across the globe, in the US, and within our own industry. Understandably, we are often asked to speak on behalf of the Academy in response to social, political, and economic events. In these instances, it is important to note that the Academy represents close to 11,000 global members with many unique viewpoints.”
Abraham criticized the statement on social media: “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’,” he wrote on X. He compared the comments to a “rightfully strong” statement made by the Academy in 2011, when the organization condemned the Iranian government’s arrest of six Iranian film-makers, including director Jafar Panahi.
The new letter, which is still updating signatories, rejects Yang and Kramer’s letter as falling “far short of the sentiments this moment calls for. Therefore we are issuing our own statement, which speaks for the undersigned members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.” Other notable signatories include: actors Natasha Lyonne, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, John Cusack, Elizabeth Olsen and Marisa Tomei; directors Errol Morris, Todd Haynes, and Boots Riley; and documentarians Laura Poitras, Liz Garbus and Alex Gibney, among others.
“To win an Oscar is not an easy task,” the letter reads. “Most films in competition are buoyed by wide distribution and exorbitantly priced campaigns directed at voting members. For No Other Land to win an Oscar without these advantages speaks to how important the film is to the voting membership.”
It continues: “The targeting of Ballal is not just an attack on one film-maker – it is an attack on all those who dare to bear witness and tell inconvenient truths.”
The letter concludes with a message to the No Other Land film team, a collective of Israelis and Palestinians who advocated for a political vision of peace on the Oscar stage just three weeks ago: “We will continue to watch over this film team. Winning an Oscar has put their lives in increasing danger, and we will not mince words when the safety of fellow artists is at stake.”
Other film organizations have spoken forcefully in Ballal’s defense. CPH:DOX, a documentary film festival currently under way in Copenhagen, issued a statement condemning the Israeli authorities’ treatment of Ballal in custody, as did the European Film Academy and the International Documentary Association.