The team behind the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land says it is planning to self-release the film on U.S. streaming platforms beginning October 20.
The team cites those platforms as including Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play and YouTube, and says that 100% of VOD proceeds will go directly to Palestinian communities of Masafer Yatta, the occupied West Bank region portrayed in the acclaimed film about Israeli settler violence and Palestinian displacement.
In an unusual move, the No Other Land team disclosed in a press release Friday that it had struck a domestic streaming deal with distributor Mubi after months of negotiation, but that the filmmakers ultimately decided to “reject” the pact due to the emergence of Mubi’s well-publicized backing from Sequoia.
Sources have confirmed that Mubi was on the verge of completing a streaming deal for the movie over the summer but that things suddenly went quiet. Mubi declined comment.
“This film shows the reality of Israeli occupation and oppression against Palestinians — but that truth apparently didn’t fit the narrative that big U.S. streamers wanted to promote. We talked to Mubi for months, and initially thought our film had found its home, but in the end we learned that they were accepting a huge investment from Sequoia Capital,” said No Other Land co-director Basel Adra.
“In addition to being unethical, it made no sense to us that they would take our film showing Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, and then also partner with a company contributing to that oppression,” added No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham.
Mubi has faced a major PR headache following its investment from U.S. venture capital firm Sequoia which has ties to Kela, an Israeli military tech startup founded by Israeli military intelligence veterans. The company was launched after Israel began its military assault on Gaza in 2023, and the No Other Land filmmakers draw a line between Kela and the Israeli military’s devastating Gaza offensive. Dozens of filmmakers signed a petition decrying Mubi’s investment from Sequoia, leading to owner Efe Cakarel having to defend the company and assert an anti-war position.
No Other Land was self-distributed theatrically in the U.S. earlier this year and took a robust $2.5 million. While mainstream streamers and buyers shied away from the movie we understand there were arthouse theatrical offers on the table but that the filmmakers decided against taking them.
As it turns out, Mubi has licensed No Other Land in a couple of European countries (Italy and Germany) through local distributors.
No Other Land, made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance that develops between a Palestinian activist and an Israeli journalist. The film launched at the Berlin Film Festival last year and played at festivals around the world before winning the Oscar for Documentary Feature.
Settler violence continues in the West Bank. Two months ago, Awdah Hathaleen, who collaborated on No Other Land, was shot and killed by an Israeli settler.