‘No sign of’ Oscar-winning director after attack

A director who picked up an award at last month’s Oscars has allegedly been “lynched” and is now missing, his co-director says.

A director who picked up an Oscar at this month’s Academy Awards has been attacked and is now missing, according to his co-director.

Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, has been attacked by Israeli settlers and then arrested by soldiers, his co-director Yuval Abraham alleged in a disturbing tweet posted to X today.

“A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film No Other Land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since,” Abraham tweeted.

The Israeli military told AP it was “looking into the incident.”

L-R: Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham with their Academy Awards at the March 2 ceremony. Mike Coppola/Getty Images

The outlet reports that Ballal was one of three Palestinians who were detained in the West Bank village of Susiya, with police saying they are being held at a military base for medical treatment.

Another of the film’s co-directors, Basel Adra, claimed the filmmakers had been targeted ever since they returned from this month’s Oscars, where their critically acclaimed film won the Best Documentary award.

“We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” Adra told The Associated Press. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”

Made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, No Other Land was filmed between 2019 and 2023 and focuses on a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank who had been resisting forced displacement from their land.

There were cheers in the audience as the filmmakers called for peace when accepting the award on March 2.

“We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger,” they said.

“The foreign policy in this country is helping to block the path [to peace]. Can’t you see that we are intertwined? There is another way.”

Originally published as ‘No sign of’ Oscar-winning director after attack