Corporate Media Consolidation Further Squashes Political Films and Gaza Stories

Oscar winner "No Other Land" finally streams and "The Voice of Hind Rajab" gets release, but companies won't touch them.

Six months ago, “No Other Land” won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, a distinction that has uplifted dozens and dozens of films over the years, but it took all this time for the film to finally land on U.S. streaming platforms—without the help of a distributor. While it’s important to note that fear, self-censorship, anti-Palestinian sentiment, and Islamophobia are partly to blame for the film’s lack of distribution all these months, it’s just as important to realize, as I’ve reported previously, that the changing economics of indie film distribution are just as much at fault for what’s happening to films about Gaza and Israel’s ongoing war in Palestine, a list that now includes not only “No Other Land,” but other newer and highly acclaimed movies such as Venice winner “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Sundance winner “Coexistence, My Ass!” and Berlin winner “Holding Liat” (all without U.S. distributors).

In the case of “No Other Land,” the situation was even more complicated, accordin…