The Source of the Oscars’ Most Powerful Speech Was No Surprise – Slate

How political did the Oscars get? Not very. Whether because of a chill in the political air or a calculation that millionaires in couture are not the best messengers for cries of revolution, the winners at the 97th Academy Awards largely stuck to the script, thanking producers and agents and loved ones rather than using the platform to speak their minds. The “sex-worker community” was mentioned more frequently than was Donald Trump, and while Anora’s Sean Baker used his Best Director speech to advocate for movie theaters, it took host Conan O’Brien to quip that the movie might have struck a chord because “Americans are excited to finally see someone stand up to a powerful Russian.” And although Emilia Pérez won two Oscars, neither its director, composers, or Supporting Actress winner Zoe Saldaña so much as acknowledged the existence of trans people, let alone spoke up in their defense.True, The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody capped his Best Actor speech with a condemnation of antisemitism and racism and a plea for “a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world,” but only after stretching several minutes past his allotted time, all for the purpose of delivering the anodyne kicker “Keep smiling, keep loving one another, and let’s rebuild together.” Daryl Hannah was more succinct, shouting out a quick “Slava Ukraine” before presenting the Oscar for Best Editing, but the moment passed so quickly the crowd didn’t have time to take it in.It fell to the directors of the documentary No Other Land to make the broadcast’s most forceful political statement. The movie, shot over the course of several years in the West Bank region of Masafer Yatta, has four directors, evenly split between Israelis and Palestinians, two of whom—the Palestinian activist Basel Adra and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham—spend a good chunk of the film debating on camera whether it’s possible for either of them to fully engage the other’s perspective. Abraham is devoted to chronicling the Israeli army’s ongoing attempts to turn Masafer Yatta into a military training ground, bulldozing houses and schools to make way for tanks and soldiers. But as his Arab co-directors point out, he is in the West Bank by choice, and he can leave whenever he wants to.Pointing out that disparity in an acceptance speech at the Berlin International Film Festival, where the film won the top documentary prize last year, led to condemnation by the city’s mayor. But Abraham repeated the same point at the Oscars, after No Other Land won Best Documentary Feature. “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free, under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.”Adra, who spoke first, used the stage to condemn the Israeli occupation, calling on the world to “take serious actions to stop the injustice and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.” Although it wasn’t audible on the broadcast, a reporter from Vulture heard someone in the audience yell out, “Get rid of Hamas!” But the crowd, which leaped to its feet when the award was announced, seemed firmly on the filmmakers’ side.In his speech, Abraham stressed a message of unity: “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger,” he said. “We see each other: the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed.” (Their co-directors, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal, shared the stage with them, although they did not speak.) But he also made clear his view that the obstacles to peace between Israelis and Palestinians are not entirely of their own making, and in so doing delivered the evening’s strongest rebuke to the United States’ involvement in the region, which most recently has included promising to displace nearly 2 million residents of the occupied territory to make room for a global resort. “There is a different path,” Abraham said, “a political solution: without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? My people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe.”From a medley of James Bond themes to multiple invocations of The Wiz, the Oscars leaned hard into old-school entertainment, and most of the winners graciously picked up their statues and went on their way. But No Other Land’s win served as a reminder that while movies can provide much-needed escape, the collective enjoyment we share in Baker’s beloved cinemas can be the seed for other coalitions, other kinds of energy. “It’s not too late for life, for the living,” Abraham concluded. “There is no other way.”Read more in Slate about the Oscars.Slate is published by The Slate
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Source: https://slate.com/culture/2025/03/oscars-2025-no-other-land-conan-trump-speech-video.html