Florida mayor seeks to evict cinema for showing Oscar-winning documentary [View all]

The mayor of Miami Beachis attempting to evict an independent cinema from city-owned property after it screened No Other Land, the film about Palestinian displacement in the West Bank that just won the Oscar for best documentary.

Steven Meiner’s proposal would terminate O Cinema’s lease and withdraw $40,000 in promised grant funding. In a newsletter sent to residents on Tuesday, Meiner condemned the film as “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents”.

Meiner had previously urged the O Cinema to cancel scheduled screenings of the documentary, citing criticism from Israeli and German officials. According to the mayor’s newsletter, O Cinema’s CEO, Vivian Marthell, allegedly agreed to withdraw the film from programming, citing “concerns of antisemitic rhetoric”, but Meiner claimed she reversed her decision the following day. The screenings sold out and the cinema added additional dates in March.
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The documentary, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature last week, follows the destruction of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank and chronicles the unlikely friendship between a Palestinian activist, Basel Adra, and Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham, who co-directed the film.