News clips of bombed-out buildings, statistics of horrific casualties, and stories of mass displacement—in recent memory, Palestinian identity has been reduced to their suffering.
As Israel’s settler colonialist project continues to wreak havoc in their lives, Palestinians have become symbols of unflinching resilience in our collective memory.
However, it is vital to remember that they are much more than that because when you think of a people, you think of the colours of their clothes, the skies under which they make merry and celebrate their festivals, the aroma of their cuisine, the warmth of their land.
The camera itself—and by extension the visual media—has become an unresisting participant in being the preserver of Palestinian struggle, pride, and existence. It captures the anarchist calisthenics of their everyday resistance to fascism through fight as well as mundane moments of glee.
The traces of joy and undying hope for a better future in the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land and Peabody Award-winning series Mo present these crucial yet distinct truths about Palestinian plurality and complexity.
Directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, the Oscar win for No Other Land (arguably the most important win of the night) comes at a crucial time as Israel continues to escalate military operations in the occupied West Bank, violate Gaza ceasefire agreements, and block aid from entering the area.
No Other Land—filmed between 2019 and 2023 with archival footage shot over 20 years—is a reminder that the reality of the relentless violence of occupation for Palestinians has existed since long before the Hamas-led attacks into the Gaza Envelope of southern Israel on 7 October 2023. A similar theme is present in the Netflix series Mo, which pointedly ends its second (and possibly last) season on 6 October 2023.
Palestinian filmmakers have been voicing their protest toward Israeli occupation of Palestine through their art for long. Elia Suleiman presents a surrealist, tragi-comic take on the absurdity of living under occupation in Divine Intervention (2002). More recently, Darin J Sallam’s 2021 film Farha tells a young girl’s interrupted coming-of-age story in the backdrop of the 1948 nakba (translated: catastrophe) or mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians by Zionist forces.
Palestine‘s Unique Love for Hindi Cinema
India’s historic relationship with Palestine serves as a testament to their enduring struggle. Despite India recognising the Israeli state in 1948, Palestine found a staunch ally in Indira Gandhi. But this friendship started drifting during the 1999 Kargil War when Israel aided India’s military warfare against Pakistan.
The India-Israel ties that started expanding under the first NDA government term, under the BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Prime Ministership, are stronger than ever now under Narendra Modi’s leadership. Despite these political betrayals, Palestine has a unique love for India, particularly Hindi cinema.
Palestinian engagement with Bollywood is a uniquely fun, yet an often overlooked cultural phenomenon.
Since the 90s, Indian films and TV series with Arabic subtitles have been a staple in Palestinian homes, creating a shared love for Indian music, dance, and fashion.
Aya Abassi, a young Palestinian in East Jerusalem, had her YouTube channel dedicated to Bollywood and Hindi language learning.
Radhika Sainath, an Indian-American civil rights attorney who spent time in Gaza, observed how deeply Palestinians admire Indian culture, noting that while Israel has blocked many goods from entering Gaza, Bollywood continues to thrive.
Celebrities like Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan are household names, and Palestinian weddings often feature Bollywood songs and rented lehengas, in a celebration of overlapping cultures. In 2015, Palestinians in Ramallah embraced Holi inspired by the many Hindi films that have captured its delightfully vibrant aesthetics and ethos.
Palestinian Joy is its Own Resistance
Mohammed Amer’s semi-autobiographical comedy drama Mo, co-created by Ramy Youssef, exists as a contrasting yet complementary work to No Other Land. Mo has managed to depict both the brutal realities of occupation, life as a perpetual refugee in a foreign land, and the vibrant, everyday humanity of Palestinian people.
Both these contemporary works provide undeniable evidence of the ongoing ethnic cleansing but also preserves Palestinian memory beyond the confines of their tragedies.
Along with videos by social media documentarians — like Bisan Owda, Renad Attallah, Mohammed Herzallah, and Omar Rasheed — Mo and No Other Land are roaring reminders of Palestinian personhood that exists despite Israel’s genocidal intent to erase it all.
From perpetually doom-scrolling mothers to a celebratory love for food Mo and No Other Land finds lightness even amidst the darkest moments. While the documentary is far more harrowing to watch — between Basel’s sleepless nights full of terror to the senseless destruction of his home and that of his neighbours — there are doses of everyday joy interjected in places.
The kids go to school. They insist upon it. They swing together while the sun sets on another harrowing day. They gather together to eat and exchange stories. When Basel’s father jokes about Yuval possibly being an Israeli spy, he is being unapologetically dark with his sense of humour. The sense of nervousness, of building trust with someone essentially from the other side, is palpable.
Share Identity At the Risk of It Being Stolen Again
More than anything else, these stories document the everyday worries of its subjects, humanising them in places where propaganda media has demonised them. Basel fears shouldering his father’s responsibilities in taking care of the family when he is imprisoned for his activism.
Basel’s biggest fear? He does not feel he can match up to his father’s vivacity. Everyone of us who grew up watching our parents sacrificing all their spare time and energy raising their children will relate to such niggling, nugatory burdens.
The same theme runs through Mo, where the weight of displacement coexists with humour and familial warmth that comes with a side serving of the most heavenly olive oil and hummus pairing.
Food is a big part of tangible and intangible cultural identity. So when Basel’s father offers Yuval ginger coffee (something Yuval has never heard of before) or Mo carries his personal bottle of olive oil everywhere he goes (almost as an extended gag), they are sharing a part of their identity at the risk of it being stolen from them again.
Mo’s mother, Yusra, carries her survivor’s guilt as she exhaustingly sifts through devastating news about her homeland. In the penultimate episode of the series, Yusra is reminded by her daughter, Nadia, that every Palestinian who has escaped the apartheid has a duty—to live, to find little pockets of sunshine, to pass down their vibrant, multifarious identity. “This is how they are not going to erase us,” beseeches Nadia.
Fight for a Future Where Palestinian Joy is No Longer Defiance
Many Jewish people went to Palestine searching for their promised land, their Zion—a Utopia eulogised in songs and stories. But ultimately they too were deceived. They were sold a lie that they have become active participants in now.
There has long been an attempt to conflate Jewish identity with being Israeli. But many Israelis and Jewish people—like Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor—see through these fallacies and hold up a mirror to the realities of occupation to the world.
The stories told in No Other Land and Mo remind us that Palestinian existence is a full-spectrum occurrence. While No Other Land bears witness to the brutal realities of displacement and apartheid, Mo asserts the right of Palestinians to be seen in their entirety—flawed, funny, hopeful, and human. Together, they challenge the world’s narrow narratives.
But as No Other Land foregrounds, witnessing is not enough. If these stories move us, they must also propel us to action—to amplify Palestinian voices, challenge the forces that seek to erase them, and stand in unwavering solidarity.
After all, resistance is not just about survival. It is about fighting for a future where Palestinian joy is no longer an act of defiance, but simply life.
(The author is an independent film, TV and pop culture journalist who has been feeding into the great sucking maw of the internet since 2010. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)