"Sometimes the settlers make comments to me about the Oscar, but I don't know if it has made things worse. What I do know is that, when they come to my house, the message they send is: We don't care that you have an Oscar.' Two weeks ago, one of them came to my home and told me: If you want to live in peace, leave. If not, I'll come at night and destroy you and your family.'"
"The documentary codirected with Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra and Rachel Szor takes place where Ballal lives and speaks: Masafer Yatta, an inhospitable area in the south of the West Bank where more than a thousand residents can legally be expelled at any moment. In Masafer Yatta, nothing has improved since the documentary. Ballal, 37, conveys this reality both in his expression and in his words: I see a very bleak future. Anyone who lives here will tell you the same thing."
Hamdan Ballal lives in Masafer Yatta, a remote area of the southern West Bank where more than a thousand residents face the legal risk of expulsion. He endures daily harassment and threats from Israeli settlers and from military authorities who support or permit them. Ballal won an Oscar for No Other Land nearly a year ago, but the award has not improved his safety or living conditions. Settlers threaten violence despite the statuette. The Israeli army can isolate and close villages quickly, accelerating de facto annexation, and residents foresee a bleak future with continuing dispossession and insecurity.
Read at english.elpais.com
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