(Con)Current Event: Screening and discussion of “No Other Land”
This semester, LNUC Concurrences introduced a new format to our regular program called "(Con)Current Events" to provide an intellectual space for engagement, debate, and critical exploration of urgent, complex, and current topics.
The first (Con)Current event, organized on May 8, focused on Palestine and the West Bank as we screened the award-winning documentary No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, 2024), filmed in and around Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills between 2019 and 2023. The film documents the systematic violence inflicted on the communities living there, by the Israeli state, its administration and army, and by settlers. It also shows the lived experience of the occupation by documenting life in the contemporary villages interspersed with narrated memories and old footage capturing the recent history of the families living there. Another key theme is the friendship developing between two of the film makers (Adra and Abraham). As a collaborative project, the directors have described the making of the film as an act of resistance.
After the screening, a panel of leading specialists in their fields: Anders Persson (political scientist, Linnaeus University), Nina Gren (social anthropologist, Lund University), and Wafá Jamil (film director and founder of the Nordic Palestinian Film Festival) brought their expertise and experience to discuss the historical, political, social, and cultural dimensions of the film and the events it depicts, and shared insights from both their research and personal experience. The conversation was moderated by Concurrences member Rebecca Duncan who also introduced the panel conversation by framing the film within the general concerns of Concurrences, pointing out the significance of the post colonial framework when thinking through the inequalities of our contemporary world.
LNUC Concurrences will continue to organize one (Con)Current Event each semester as an opportunity to connect the research at the centre to ongoing political, social, and cultural debates.