No Other Land, Academy Award-nominated for Best Documentary Feature, opens today in New York at Film Forum from mTuckman Media/Cinetic Media with a limited theatrical expansion next weekend.
The doc is written, directed, produced and edited by a collective of Palestinian and Israeli activists and filmmakers — Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. It premiered at Berlin, winning Best Documentary, followed by a widely decorated festival sweep. It sits at 100% with Critics on Rotten Tomatoes (57 reviews). Deadline’s Matthew Carey interviews the filmmakers here.
The release started circulating against the backdrop of the brutal Israel-Hamas war, currently in a period of ceasefire. It predates the war but explores root causes of enmity as the filmmakers chronicle the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages.
Over a period of five years (2019–23), Masafer Yatta resident and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra shoots video of home, school, water well, and road demolitions (legalized by the area’s conversion to an IDF training zone) and their consequent protests by displaced residents. Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham — free to move about while Adra’s movements are constricted — takes this nonviolent fight to a wider platform. The two form a complicated friendship and hopeful partnership in their efforts to resist a government-sanctioned mass eviction.
Bleecker Street debuts Love Me, the feature debut of Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero, in moderate release on 520 screens. An interesting film that had a buzzy premiere at Sundance in 2024, see Deadline review. Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun play a buoy and a satellite in a love story that spans billions of years. They meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love. Love Me explores contemporary topics surrounding technology and identity utilizing filmmaking techniques from live-action, practical animatronics, classic animation and game engines.
Christophe Martin’s Marcello Mio from Strand Releasing opens at the IFC Center in New York. The family affair stars Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve. Chiara is an actress, the daughter of Marcello Mastroianni and Deneuve. During a summer that sees her reality fall into disarray, she decides to live as her father. She dresses like him. She speaks like him. She breathes like him. Chiara’s impersonation is so convincing that people around her begin to believe. They call her Marcello. Premiered at Cannes, see Deadline review. Expands next week.
Briarcliff Entertainment releases action thriller Valiant One at 1,275 theaters. Directed by Steve Barnett, written by Barnett and Eric Tipton. Chase Stokes, Lana Condor, Desmin Borges, Daniel Jun, Jonathan Whitesell and Callan Mulvey star. A U.S. helicopter goes down in North Korea and a group of reserve soldiers must find a way out before starting a war.
Fathom Entertainment presents drama Green And Gold by Anders Lindwall and starring Craig T. Nelson as a Wisconsin dairy farmer who tries to stave off foreclosure by betting his farm on the Green Bay Packers winning the Super Bowl. With Brandon Sklenar, Madison Lawlor, Charlie Berens, and the late M. Emmet Walsh in his last performance. Screenplay by Lindwall, Steven Shafer, Michael Graf, Missy Mareau Garcia.
New docufiction This Woman, the feature directorial debut of feminist activist artist Alan Zhang, opens at Metrograph in NYC. Screened at IDFA, RIDM (where it took the Special Jury Mention – International Feature Competition), and Visions du Réel (where it took the Compétition Internationale Burning Lights – Special Jury Award), among other fests.
The is the first release for Alula Film (formerly known as D.C. Chinese Film) a now Los Angeles-based nonprofit for films created by and about Chinese-speaking communities around the world. It plans to roll out to additional cities. The film follows Beibei (Li Hehe), a recently unemployed 35-year-old woman who, in the early months of the pandemic, finds solace from an unfulfilling marriage in various affairs as she questions the social forces that have led her to this point of malaise. Produced by a Malaysian company and filmed in China—where Zhang skirted the nation’s censorship boards (which resulted in the film’s ineligibility for a domestic rollout)—This Woman boldly challenges cultural traditions in both countries.
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