Movies do not exist in a vacuum. They are not just works of art, they exist as a part of the culture that gave birth to them, intrinsically tied to the time and place in which they are made. Some are timeless, resonating beyond the conditions that created them, but it is often impossible to separate them from those conditions, because it not only helps us understand the film, it provides a lens through which to understand the history of their time. What were people thinking, feeling, doing at this moment in time that made this film what it is?

There will be others who will write far more eloquently about this film than I will, but I think it might be one of the most essential films of our time. No Other Land is a searing and devastatingly urgent portrait of the plight of Palestinians through the eyes of Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who form an unlikely friendship covering and protesting the Israeli destruction of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank.