‘No Other Land’ Wins Best Feature Documentary & Best Director At 40th IDA Documentary Awards: Complete Winners List

It’s been an extraordinary week for No Other Land, the timely documentary directed by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.

The film set in the occupied West Bank won Best Feature Documentary at the 40^th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles tonight and it also won the Best Director prize for the work of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, and Yuval Abraham. The quartet of filmmakers also received the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award, a previously announced honor recognizing the difficult and dangerous conditions in which the film was made.

No Other Land swept most of the awards announced this week: on Monday, it won Best Documentary at the Gotham Awards, and on Tuesday, the New York Film Critics Circle named it the best documentary of the year. It won the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award on Wednesday, although Sugarcane won the NBR’s prize for Best Documentary.

The directors spent five years on the project, documenting life in the rural West Bank area of Masafer Yatta, where the Israel Defense Forces regularly knock down Palestinian homes and schools, saying it needs the land as a military training zone (after a 20-year legal battle, the Israeli Supreme Court in 2022 ruled the IDF had the legal authority to expel villagers from those Palestinian lands).

No Other Land bested a strong field of competitors for the Best Feature Documentary award, including Sugarcane (National Geographic Documentary Films); Black Box Diaries (MTV Documentary Films); Dahomey (MUBI), The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix), and more. No Other Land does not have U.S. distribution, although it has earned theatrical distribution in other parts of the world.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat won two awards on the night: Best Writing for writer-director Johan Grimonprez, and Best Editing, recognizing the work of Rik Chaubet.

Instruments of a Beating Heart, a New York Times Op-Doc directed by Ema Ryan Yamazaki, won Best Short Documentary, putting it in a strong position to contend for Oscars. The film examines how Japan’s primary school education system instills civic virtues, cooperation, and empathy among schoolchildren.

Best Cinematography went to Ruslan Fedotov who shot Queendom, a film about the Russian-born drag performance artist Jenna Marvin. Best Original Music Score went to Víctor Hernández Stumpfhauser, composer of Frida, the documentary about legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Omar & Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird won Best Music Documentary.

At the ceremony at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles, filmmaker Dawn Porter received the Career Achievement Award, and Black Box Diaries director Shiori Ito received the Emerging Filmmaker Award.

“I’m very excited,” Itō told Deadline about receiving the award. “Being here in front of all these amazing filmmakers who have been my textbook, it’s just a surreal feeling. So, I’m very happy.”

“IDA received 700+ entries in all categories from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented,” the nonprofit noted. “IDA Documentary Awards entries were reviewed by blue-ribbon jurors consisting of 300 documentary professionals from 40+ countries.” IDA members voted to determine the winners in the Best Feature and Best Short categories; winners in other categories were chosen by blue-ribbon panels.

40^TH IDA DOCUMENTARY AWARDS WINNERS & NOMINEES
(All nominees listed under each category are in alphabetical order by film title).

Best Feature Documentary Nominees

Winner: No Other Land (Palestine, Norway, USA | Director: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor & Yuval Abraham | Producer: Fabien Greenberg & bård Kjøge Rønning)

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Best Short Documentary Nominees

Winner: Instruments of a Beating Heart (Japan | The New York Times Op-Docs | Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki | Producer: Eric Nyari)

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Best Director

Winner: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor & Yuval Abraham, No Other Land (Palestine, Norway, USA) 

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Best Cinematography

Winner: Ruslan Fedotov, Queendom (Greenwich Entertainment | USA, France)

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Best Editing

Winner: Rik Chaubet, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat  (Kino Lorber | Belgium, France, Netherlands)

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Best Original Music Score

Winner: Víctor Hernández Stumpfhauser, Frida (Amazon MGM Studios | USA)

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Best Writing

Winner: Johan Grimonprez, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Kino Lorber | Belgium, France, Netherlands)

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Best TV Feature Documentary

Winner: Two American Families: 1991-2024 (PBS | USA | Directors: Tom Casciato, Kathleen Hughes Producers: Tom Casciato, Kathleen Hughes, Frank Koughan, Nina Chaudry)

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Best Curated Series

Winner: Independent Lens (PBS | USA | EPs: Lois Vossen, Carrie Lozano) 

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Best Episodic Series

Winner: We’re Here (HBO | Max | USA | Director: Peter LoGreco | Producers: Erin Haglund, Kimberly Greenhut | EP: Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman, Johnnie Ingram, Stephen Warren, Peter LoGreco, Erin Gamble)

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Best Limited Series

Winner: A Town Called Victoria (PBS | USA | Director: Li Lu | Producers: Li Lu, Anthony Pedone | EPs: Deniese Davis, Hunter Arnold, Lois Vossen, Rachel Raney, Royd Chung, Donald Young, Stephen Gong, Li Lu)

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Best Music Documentary

Winner: Omar & Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird (Oscilloscope Laboratories | USA | Director: Nicolas Jack Davies | Producers: Johann Scheerer)

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Best Audio Documentary

Winner: “What’s Up, Michael Freeman?” (Ear Hustle and Radiotopia from PRX | USA | Host: Earlonne Woods, Nigel Poor | Engineers: Earlonne Woods, Fernando Arruda, Harry Culhane | USA | Producers: Amy Standen, Bruce Wallace, Rahsaan Thomas)    

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David L. Wolper Student Documentary

Winner: Her Name Was Zehava (NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute | USA, Israel | Director: Tamar Baruch | Producer: Tamar Baruch)

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