'No Other Land' director slams Florida mayor's campaign as 'dangerous'
4 Min Read
Free speech supporters are rallying against what they regard as hazardous government overreach on constitutional rights.
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Winners of the award for best documentary feature film for "No Other Land" pose in the press room at the Oscars, on March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP)
The mayor of Miami Beach is seeking to evict an independent cinema from city-owned property after it screened 'No Other Land', a film on "Israel's" forced displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank that recently received an Oscar for best documentary.
Steven Meiner's plan would terminate O Cinema's lease and withhold $40,000 in promised grant cash. In a production newsletter to residents Tuesday, he claimed the production was "a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents."
Meiner had earlier pushed O Cinema to cancel the documentary's scheduled showing, citing objections from Israeli and German officials. According to the mayor's newsletter, O Cinema's CEO, Vivian Marthell, purportedly agreed to remove the film from programming due to "concerns of antisemitic rhetoric," but Meiner said she reversed her decision the next day. The shows were sold out, therefore the cinema added more days in March.
“Our decision to screen NO OTHER LAND is not a declaration of political alignment. It is, however, a bold reaffirmation of our fundamental belief that every voice deserves to be heard,” Marthell said to the Miami Herald.
The film's co-directors, Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, spent five years creating the documentary. It captures Israeli soldiers demolishing homes and forcibly removing residents to establish a military training zone, as well as the expansion of Israeli settlements into the Palestinian community.
The documentary emphasizes the contrasting realities faced by the two friends—Abraham, who has a yellow Israeli number plate allowing him to travel freely, and Adra, who is confined to a shrinking territory that grows increasingly restrictive for Palestinians.
In response to Meiner’s efforts, Abraham commented on Thursday, "Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it."
"Once you witness Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta, it becomes impossible to justify it, and that’s why the mayor is so afraid of our film," Abraham stated in a social media post.
Tensions over free speech in support of Palestine are especially noteworthy after demonstrations erupted nationwide this week after immigration authorities detained Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student activist and green card holder who helped lead the Palestinian solidarity movement during the college encampments last year. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has accused Khalil of "pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity" without providing any evidence.
The efforts to ban the cinema from showing the film also come at a critical time when support for "Israel" in the US has plummeted to a 25-year low and pro-Palestine sympathy has surged.
Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, a Miami Beach commissioner, said she agreed with the mayor's evaluation of the film but advised against a "kneejerk reaction" that may result in "costly legal battles" and cited O Cinema's "longstanding commitment to the Jewish community."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has declared the mayor's reprisal against O Cinema unlawful, with Daniel Tilley, the branch's legal director, telling Axios, "The government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them."
Free speech supporters are also rallying against what they regard as hazardous government overreach on constitutional rights.
"Screening movies to make sure they conform to local censors' tastes is a practice we left behind with the red scare," Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, declared.
"If the first amendment doesn't mean that a movie theater can show an Oscar-winning film, something is seriously wrong."
Miami Beach previously experienced controversy over creative expression in 2019, when the city withdrew an image of Raymond Herisse, a Black man tragically shot by Beach police, from a public art project.
The mayor's request to revoke the cinema's lease is scheduled for a commission vote next Wednesday.
