On 'September 5' and 'No Other Land,' I'm on Team Show All The Films

Don't boycott controversial films. Show them- and go out and see them.

Image: Paramount Pictures

A pair of new items from the last week:

• The filmmakers of the documentary No Other Land made a plea for a U.S. distributor to pick up the film. The project of a collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers is a documentary about Palestinians being displaced in one area of the West Bank. No Other Land has been named the year’s best documentary by several regional critics groups and was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar, both of which are rather rare achievements for a film without distribution.

• Employees of the Alamo Drafthouse location in Brooklyn have launched a petition, now with over 1,000 signatures, demanding that the theater no longer show the movie September 5, which depicts how ABC Sports covered the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli team during the 1972 Olympics. The petition denounces September 5 as a “Zionist propaganda film,” and also “ahistorical and dehumanizing.

These are far from the only recent examples of films about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict getting into the crosshairs of people who don’t want them seen, for ideological reasons. Last fall, a showing at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute of The Child Within Me, a documentary about Israeli musician Yehuda Poliker, which was to be shown as part of the Israeli Film Festival, was abruptly canceled due to BDS protests. However, a court order led to the movie showing anyway. And there have been multiple instances, including on college campuses, of showings being canceled of Israelism, a 2023 documentary about young Jewish people turning against Zionism.

Here’s my solution: No Other Land should get distribution, and September 5 should continue to be shown. Not only that, but everyone — regardless of where they stand on Israel/Palestine, and especially if they’re on the side ostensibly opposite that of the film — should make an attempt to go and see both.

Both are outstanding films, which show that the cinematic form can tell fascinating stories and render them with empathy.