The Genocide Won't Be Televised

Where are the films about Gaza?

This was the initial title for my recent piece in Documentary Magazine, “No Other Distribution: How Film Industry Economics and Politics Are Suppressing Docs Sympathetic to Palestine and Critical of Israel.” But my editors and I agreed that since the article focuses mostly on the various reasons why the Palestinian film “No Other Land” doesn’t have a U.S. distribution deal, a title referencing the war in Gaza might be misplaced. Or deemed too inflammatory.

It’s a long piece (over 3,000 words), with interviews with a host of filmmakers (Hany Abu-Assad, Jude Chehab, Guy Dividi, Alex Gibney, Razi Jafri, Brett Story) and industry folks, and I’d urge you to take some time to read it. But I’d like to take this space to elaborate more on the specific question about contemporaneous docs about Gaza and Palestine on our media platforms. Obviously, a lot of the reasons for the lack of content about the war are related directly to the very same reasons that may be surrounding “No Other Land.” As “No Other Land” co-director Yuval Abraham recently told Variety, politics were partly to blame, because, as he said, there is “much less space” for criticism of Israel in the U.S.

That film’s long road to U.S. distribution is also a result of the state of the documentary marketplace, where streamers and broadcasters are eschewing any content that is deemed controversial or challenging. On the other hand, it may also be strategic, because as I was told, it’s quite possible that U.S. sales agent Cinetic Media is just holding out for a big sale once an Oscar nomination increases its value. We’ll know in a matter of days or weeks whether that’s the case.

But I remain skeptical about a “big streaming deal” ever coming for “No Other Land” or any docs about Gaza. While the just announced ceasefire might allow for a much-needed break in the violence, and more open lines of dialogue, communication, and media that might have seemed untenable as citizens were being slaughtered, it’s probably going to take something more seismic to shift the way media conglomerates and streamers are operating these days. It’s not just the risk-averse business environment; it’s also Big Media’s capitulation to the new right-wing regime taking over our country. Everyone is afraid, and trying to find their way forward in a country that will undoubtedly feel like something out of “The Man in the High Castle.” And remember, these are the people who brought us the “Muslim Ban” (along with some new unabashed Islamophobes, like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth), so we are living in a country and a culture that doesn’t want to acknowledge Palestinian (or Muslim) stories.

Neither, apparently, does Netflix. In doing the research for the Documentary Magazine article, I learned about how Netflix let its licenses lapse for a number of Palestinian films it had acquired as part of a 2021 “Palestinian Stories” film package. Now, this is what you get (pictured) when you search for the Palestinian Stories collection on Netflix. Kind of says it all.

I’m not sure what it’s going to take to reverse this chilling effect. I was watching a brand new documentary recently that highlighted the plight of Palestinians (it doesn’t have distribution yet) and it was a cathartic experience, because I hadn’t yet seen a feature-length documentary that addressed Gaza.

When I saw “20 Days in Mariupol,” it was a similar experience, as I imagine it was for a lot of people, allowing me to try to process the horrors of what was happening in Ukraine in a blistering, durational way that isn’t quite the same as a TV news documentary or Instagram Reel. In the year after Russia invaded Ukraine, I probably watched at least a dozen feature-length documentaries about the war. While there have been a few notable documentaries on the festival circuit that look at Palestinians’ struggles in the past, including “No Other Land,” “Bye Bye Tiberias,” “I Shall Not Hate,” “Life is Beautiful,” and “Three Promises,” there has really been only one film about the current war in Gaza, Rashid Masharawi’s collection of short films, “From Ground Zero,” which is currently in theatrical release from Watermelon Pictures. (You can read more about Watermelon Pictures in the Documentary Magazine piece.)

Of course, it takes time to make a good feature-length documentary, and I expect there will be more in the coming year, and if the ceasefire holds, filmmakers may be able to get more access to Gaza and the West Bank without fear of being shot or bombed by Israeli forces. But my concern is still whether these projects will get seen, circulated, and distributed, because there remains a taboo in America related to Palestinian sovereignty and resistance, as if addressing Palestinian rights is somehow antisemitic. Or even if gatekeepers don’t believe this themselves, they are so afraid of being attacked by pro-Israel lobbyists, politicians, and activists, that they shy away from being associated with any media content that shows what’s happening to the Palestinians (or criticizes Israel).

When I spoke with filmmaker Razi Jafri, he told me curators, programmers, and administrators often welcome his outspokenness for Palestinian rights and Palestinian stories in private, “but it’s the board and the executive leadership that are terrified about talking about Palestinians and centering Palestine,” he said. “Most people will tell us that we are so glad you’re doing this, because we’re literally not allowed to say anything.”

But by eliding, avoiding, or glossing over the more than 17,400 children killed in Gaza since October 7, I think it creates another problem for our society. In not cultivating and disseminating stories about the atrocities (or the humanity that still exists) in Gaza, the industry is short-circuiting our ability to process one of the worst human rights disasters of our times. We are being deprived of our ability to understand, to empathize, to grieve, and hence, to be able to move towards some kind of accountability, action, and change. This is what stories—both fiction and nonfiction—can do for our culture. And by not talking about it, or pretending it will go away, or censoring it, we are making it worse for everyone.