This Oscar-winning movie is difficult to see in theaters. Why one cinema fought for the right to show it.

When No Other Land premiered in the U.S. in February, the documentary chronicling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as told through a cross-cultural friendship opened on a single screen. The film had no domestic distributor.

After winning the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film in March, it still doesn’t. Adding to those distribution challenges, a Miami Beach, Fla., theater that screened the film after its Oscar win faced — and recently overcame — a planned eviction by the city’s mayor.

Distributors in the U.S. have shied away from the film, which has generated controversy and seen one of its filmmakers, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, face accusations of antisemitism after an awards acceptance speech at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival in which he called the conflict “a situation of apartheid.”

Showing the destruction of homes and villages in the West Bank region of Masafer Yatta by Israeli military forces, No Other Land looks at the conflict through the eyes of both Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor. It also shows the differences in freedom Abraham experiences versus the limits Adra faces as a Palestinian activist.

Adra echoed this in his Oscars acceptance speech, saying, “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” As a new father, he said his “hope to my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now.”

Tensions, both onscreen and off, run high. That’s why the filmmakers have since had to self-release their film in the U.S., working with companies Tuckman Media and Cinetic Media to facilitate bookings that have now expanded to 120 screens. (The film landed distributors in two dozen other countries before its March 2 Oscar win.)

One of the U.S. theaters showing the critically acclaimed film, O Cinema in Miami Beach, recently faced an eviction attempt by the city’s mayor, Steven Meiner, who is Jewish. After the film screened on March 7 at the theater, which is located in a city-owned building, Meiner introduced a proposal to terminate a lease agreement with O Cinema, calling the film “a false, one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people” in a newsletter to constituents.

“I am a staunch believer in free speech. But normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach, after O Cinema conceded the ‘concerns of antisemitic rhetoric,’ is unjust to the values of our city and residents and should not be tolerated,” Meiner wrote.

The mayor had first corresponded with O Cinema’s CEO Vivian Marthell on March 5, asking her to reconsider the cinema’s plan to screen the film. After Marthell conceded in a letter the following day, calling the film “antisemitic rhetoric,” she later reversed course after consulting the theater’s independent board and “reflecting on the broader implications for free speech and O Cinema’s mission.”

The blowback for Meiner was swift, with not only O Cinema representatives but also filmmakers, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and local residents questioning his commitment to free speech.

“We take very seriously our responsibility as a cultural organization that presents works that are engaging and thought-provoking and that foster dialogue,” Kareem Tabsch, a filmmaker and co-founder of O Cinema, told the New York Times. “And we take very seriously our responsibility to do that without interference of government.” (Tabsch did not immediately respond to Yahoo Entertainment's request for comment.)

Abraham of No Other Land, who also did not respond to Yahoo Entertainment's request for comment, issued a strong rebuke of the mayor’s move on X.

“When this mayor uses the word antisemitism to silence us, Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality for all, he is dangerously emptying it out of meaning,” he wrote. “Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.”

In an open letter to the city of Miami Beach that had more than 750 signatures, members of the international filmmaking community wrote that the mayor’s proposal was an "attack on freedom of expression, the right of artists to tell their stories and a violation of the First Amendment."

It continued: "It is also an offense to the people of Miami Beach, and Greater Miami as a whole, who deserve to have access to a diverse range of films and perspectives.”

In response to a March 18 town hall video posted on Meiner’s Facebook page, a local resident commented, “I’m a Jew and Zionist and your constituent. However, I disagree with your stance. You do not get to decide what films citizens get to see because it’s offensive to you.”

In a city commission meeting on March 19, the mayor relented and withdrew his proposal to end O Cinema’s lease and cut funding. He also set aside an alternative measure, asking that the theater screen films in which “the viewpoint of the Jewish people and the State of Israel is fully and accurately presented,” according to the New York Times.

“This was a discussion that needed to be had — it was a healthy discussion, and I’m glad that we had it,” Meiner said at the meeting, the Times reported.

In the meantime, the two showings of No Other Land at O Cinema scheduled for March 20 are sold out.