Abraham, Yuval (1995- )

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    Oscars 2025’s Best and Worst Moments: Speeches, Performances and More

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    There was plenty to take in, including a “Wicked” opener, Conan O’Brien gags, and memorable speeches both good and bad. And people watching on Hulu saw almost all of it.Most Gravity Defying Opener: ‘Wicked’When it was announced that Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo would perform at the Oscars, it was assumed they would sing something from “Wicked,” the film for which they were both nominated. They did, of course. It would be silly to pass up that opportunity. But the women also paid tribute to previous cinematic versions of Oz, showing how Hollywood had imagined L. Frank Baum’s world through the years.Grande emerged first, wearing a sparkling red gown, channeling Judy Garland to sing “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz.” She then ceded the stage to Erivo, who performed “Home,” Dorothy’s ballad from “The Wiz,” famously sung onscreen by Diana Ross. And, yes, then they closed with “Defying Gravity,” the signature song from “Wicked,” with Erivo bringing everything home with her shiver-inducing war cry. (Later, we returned to Oz to honor Quincy Jones when Queen Latifah performed a rousing rendition of “Ease on Down the Road.”) — Esther ZuckermanSean Baker joined rarefied company with his Oscar haul.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesMost Dominant Night: Sean BakerThe “Anora” director has hovered around the outer edges of the Academy’s sensibility with his previous films “The Florida Project,” which earned Willem Dafoe a supporting-actor nomination, and “Red Rocket,” which had some Oscar buzz but was ultimately snubbed. Now Baker appears to have hit a sweet spot: He earned four separate Oscars tonight — in the editing, directing, original-screenplay and best-picture categories — which tied the record set by Walt Disney. Don’t expect Baker’s R-rated films to get the same amusement-park treatment, though. — Kyle BuchananConan O’Brien, hosting for the first time, injected some silliness into the proceedings. Philip Cheung for The New York TimesBest Host for the Moment: Conan O’BrienGoing into the night, O’Brien was at least as nervous as he was excited. But from the filmed opening — in which he fished around in Demi Moore’s back, in a spoof of “The Substance” — to his monologue, O’Brien seemed to have a joyful glint, even (or maybe especially) when he was razzing the industry. (The sandworm from “Dune” earned its residuals.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘No Other Land,’ Whose Politics Deterred Distributors, Wins Best Documentary

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      Accepting the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday night, two filmmakers behind “No Other Land,” which chronicles Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the southern West Bank, called on the world to work to help halt the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, free the remaining Israeli hostages captured in “the crime of Oct. 7” and chart a more equitable path forward for Palestinians.“When I look at Basel, I see my brother,” said Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist and one of the filmmakers, referring to his fellow director, the Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who had just spoken. “But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws, that destroy lives, that he cannot control.”Adra said that their film “reflects the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades and still resist, as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”The selection of “No Other Land” for best documentary feature represented a landmark and a rebuke. Despite a string of honors and rave reviews, no distributor would pick up this film in the United States, making it nearly impossible for American filmgoers to see it in theaters or to stream it. This shortcoming made “No Other Land” part of a broader trend in recent years in which topical documentaries have struggled to secure distribution.The film is often brutal, featuring disturbing images of razed houses, crying children, bereft mothers and even on-camera shootings. (Israel’s Supreme Court ruled the government has the right to clear the area depicted in the film.) And it entered a perennially supercharged political climate at an especially sensitive moment, debuting within months of Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s response in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.The politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are especially prominent in Hollywood. Last year, the entertainment executive Ari Emanuel, who is Jewish, drew boos after criticizing Israel’s conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while accepting an award from a major Jewish group in Los Angeles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      “No Other Land” Is the Oscar-Nominated Film That No Studio Will Touch

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      “No Other Land,” about the destruction of a village in the occupied West Bank, is one of the year’s most acclaimed films. Still, U.S. studios are unwilling to distribute it.No documentary this season has been more talked about or acclaimed than “No Other Land,” which chronicles the besieged community of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank as Israeli forces demolish residents’ homes and expel families from the land they have lived in for generations, claiming the area is needed for a military training ground.Directed by the Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal alongside the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, “No Other Land” has received critical acclaim and collected many honors on the festival circuit. After winning the best documentary award at its Berlin International Film Festival premiere last February, the film also earned the same prize at the Gotham Awards and from major critics’ groups in New York and Los Angeles. Just weeks ago, it received an Oscar nomination.Still, no American studio has been willing to pick up this hot-button film, even though distributors typically spend this time of year eagerly boasting about their Oscar-nomination tallies.“I still think it’s possible, but we’ll have to see,” Abraham told me last week. “It’s clear that there are political reasons at play here that are affecting it. I’m hoping that at a certain point the demand for the film will become so clear and indisputable that there will be a distributor with the kind of courage to take it on and show it to the audience.”In the meantime, the directors have embarked on a self-distribution plan that has put “No Other Land” into 23 U.S. theaters; on the back of strong box office, it will continue to roll out into additional cities over the coming weeks.Adra and Abraham are not just part of the film’s directing team, but its two primary subjects. The 28-year-old Adra was raised in Masafer Yatta and has been documenting the forced expulsion since he was a teenager. Over the course of the film, he builds a strong but tense bond with Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem but travels frequently to Masafer Yatta to write about the situation there for an Israeli audience.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More