Entertainment
'No Other Land' filmmaker Hamdan Ballal detained by Israeli forces after he was allegedly attacked by settlers
Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, one of the two Palestinian co-directors behind the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was detained Monday in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli military after he was allegedly brutally attacked by settlers.
Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who co-directed “No Other Land,” wrote Monday on X that “a group of settlers just lynched” his collaborator. “They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding.”
“Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him,” Abraham added in his post, which was shared in English and Hebrew. “No sign of him since.”
Anna Lippman, a delegate for the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence who recorded and shared video of the attack Monday, told The Times via social media that more than a dozen settlers attacked the Palestinian village Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area, destroying property. During the attack Monday evening, Ballal was “injured by settlers.” He was receiving treatment in an ambulance for injuries to his head, which included swelling and bleeding, when “soldiers came and took him and two other Palestinian men from Susiya,” Lippman said.
“We do not know where he is or his condition,” she added Monday.
The Center for Jewish Nonviolence shared dashcam footage on Bluesky of someone shoving three people and punching one member of the group. The video later shows a person — whose face is covered by a mask — joined by several others, picking an object from the ground and hurling it at the vehicle, destroying the windshield. Video recorded and shared by Lippman shows an alternate angle of the confrontation.
Activist Josh Kimelman, who was present during the confrontation, told the Associated Press Monday, “We don’t know where Hamdan is because he was taken away in a blindfold.”
Abraham did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for additional comment.
In a statement shared to The Times, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said a “violent confrontation” broke out in Susiya after several people it described as “terrorists” allegedly hurled rocks at Israeli citizens and damaged their vehicles. The incident involved “mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene,” the statement said. IDF said its members and Israel police responded “to disperse the confrontation,” and that the people it described as “terrorists” allegedly started hurling rocks their way.
IDF and Israel police detained three Palestinians and an Israeli person allegedly involved in the confrontation. The four detainees were taken for further questioning by Israel police and one Israeli person was evacuated to receive medical treatment, according to the statement. IDF also denied allegations that a Palestinian was detained from inside an ambulance.
The Times has confirmed that Ballal was indeed among the three people detained Monday evening. He was detained on suspicion of hurling rocks at IDF and police.
Support for Ballal poured in Monday afternoon as news of his detainment spread. Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who also co-directed and appears in “No Other Land,” tweeted about Ballal’s apprehension and shared a photo of a person with both hands behind their back being escorted into a vehicle adorned with an Israeli flag. He said his collaborator “is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding.”
He added: “This is how they erase Masafer Yatta.”
The International Documentary Assn. released a statement in support of Ballal, who they allege was “violently attacked and kidnapped in the West Bank,” and urged his release. The missive also demanded that the filmmaker’s family and community “be informed about his condition, location, and the justification for his detention.”
“No Other Land,” directed by Abraham, Ballal, Adra and Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor, is a harrowing documentary that chronicles Israel’s demolition of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta to make way for an Israeli military training ground, displacing families and communities. The film won the documentary award at the 2025 Academy Awards.
Recently, “No Other Land” found itself in the center of tension in the Miami Beach cinema scene. Earlier this month, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner threatened to pull grant funding from the O Cinema and end its lease on city-owned property if it screened the documentary. In a letter sent to the movie house, Meiner called the film “a one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents.”
Meiner withdrew his threats last week.
In a statement, Abraham hit back at Meiner’s previous criticism that “No Other Land” was “egregiously antisemitic.”
“When the mayor uses the word ‘antisemitism’ to silence Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality, he is emptying it out of meaning. I find that to be very dangerous.
“Censorship is always wrong,” Abraham added. “We made this film to reach U.S. audiences from a wide variety of political views. I believe that once you see the harsh reality of occupation in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, it becomes impossible to justify it, and that’s why the mayor is so afraid of ‘No Other Land.’ It won’t work. Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.”
Times staff writer Mark Olsen contributed to this report.
Entertainment
Lucas Museum to give free annual passes to South L.A. neighbors, host community preview day
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is moving at light speed toward its Sept. 22 opening, announced Thursday that it will give free annual passes to its South L.A. neighbors living in the 90037 ZIP Code. The 300,000-square-foot, $1-billion museum located in Exposition Park will also host a special community preview day on Sept. 13, more than a week before the general public gets to step inside.
The 90037 ZIP Code has a population of more than 65,000 and is bordered roughly by the 110 Freeway to the west, Slauson Avenue to the south, Central Avenue to the east and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north. Residents can register for passes at lucasmuseum.org/lm37 and will be alerted in August when the program launches. Pass holders can reserve tickets for themselves and one guest.
Tickets for non-pass holders go on sale July 21. They cost $25 for adults and $21 for seniors. Kids 17 and under are free.
“Storytelling has the power to bring people together and create a sense of community,” said Lucas Museum Chief Executive Tracey Bates in a news release about the program. “Through LM37, we are inviting our South Los Angeles neighbors to make the museum part of their lives and take their own path of discovery through the art, programs and experiences that will help shape this new cultural hub for Los Angeles.”
The community preview day is designed to give local business owners, community partners, civic leaders and registered LM37 pass holders a sneak peak of the 10,000 square feet of exhibition space, as well as the expansive gardens with 11 acres of park space.
The opening programming, curated by co-founder George Lucas, features 20 inaugural exhibitions across more than 30 galleries, including one titled “Star Wars in Motion,” containing vehicle designs, high-speed racers, flying vessels, props, costumes and illustrations from the first six films in the beloved franchise.
More than 1,200 objects will be on display from Lucas’ personal collection of narrative art. Highlights include work by Norman Rockwell and Dorothea Lange, as well as a variety of manga, children’s book illustrations and comics.
Movie Reviews
Movie review: Supergirl is a blast
Last year’s “Superman” ended with Iggy Pop singing “Because I’m a punk rocker, yes I am” — an ironic coda for a superlatively square hero. But it rings straightforwardly true for Superman’s cousin.
Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl, sports not a spandex suit but a Blondie T-shirt. When we meet her in Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl,” she’s been on an interstellar bender for days. She’s more Courtney Love than Clark Kent.
Nonchalant and sarcastic, Kara is also a little Han Solo-ish, you might say, given that she moves capriciously through the galaxy in her junky spaceship while getting in fights in extraterrestrial bars. She’s a welcome, jagged riff on more buttoned-up superheroes, and Alcock is terrific in the role. If only “Supergirl” was as good as she is.
While the latest DC release, and second under James Gunn’s stewardship, has its moments, “Supergirl” struggles to match Kara’s punk-rock energy with an equally spirited supporting cast and story.
Skepticism seems to have gathered for “Supergirl” ahead of its release. Many fans have argued it wasn’t the right next step for DC Universe. But I’m not so sure. Alcock’s breezy cameo in “Superman” was one of that movie’s highlights. Handing the follow-up to her, and her faithful floating dog Krypto, strikes me as an extremely natural next step. When in doubt, follow the dog.
And much of “Supergirl” is winning. It resides almost entirely in space, touching down only momentarily on Earth. In its consistently creative production design, clever needle drops and underdog story arc, “Supergirl” resides a little closer to Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies than other DC entries. Its outer space is filled with cosmic detritus, mean characters and cute critters. Seth Rogen as the voice of a tiny alien co-piloting a space bus is an inspired concoction, as is a shabbier sci-fi realm with rest stops along the intergalactic highway.
Entertainment
Justin Baldoni and wife break silence after ‘It Ends With Us’ legal battle with Blake Lively
Justin Baldoni has broken his silence after reaching a settlement in a lengthy and highly publicized legal dispute with Blake Lively.
Baldoni and his wife, Emily Baldoni, presented a united front in an Instagram video the couple shared Wednesday that began, “So we have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years, and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say, because Lord knows we have.”
The “It Ends With Us” actor and director said that although they’d wanted to address the debacle that involved dueling lawsuits with Lively, nearly two years of tit-for-tat fodder and culminated in a confidential settlement, “something was telling us not to.”
The couple said they prayed about when to make a public statement. “This feels like the moment,” Emily said.
“What does feel important,” she continued, “is that we can genuinely say that we are sitting here today feeling immense gratitude for so many things and so many people and so many things that have happened to us.”
“Gratitude has saved us,” Justin added.
“I also feel that it’s important as we say that — in that gratitude — it doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years, and we’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things,” Emily said. “How could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack. And the truth is, reality is, is that there’s been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak.”
“We don’t even know this is the right thing to say, but we just know we need to share something,” Justin said. “What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken into existence — “
“Untruthful,” Emily broke in.
“We didn’t want to add to the noise, so we just wanted to let the justice system run its course,” he said.
“And the truth and the facts have spoken for themselves,” Emily said.
The couple’s statement comes a year and a half after Lively filed a bombshell lawsuit against Baldoni alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and several other charges on the heels of a messy “It Ends With Us” summer release and press tour that fueled rumors of on-set turmoil.
Less than a month after the allegations against Baldoni rallied Hollywood against him, he countersued Lively, her publicist Leslie Sloane and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for $400 million in damages, claiming they’d smeared his name in the press and wrestled away his control of the film. His suit was later dismissed.
In May, two weeks ahead of the trial, Lively and Baldoni reached an agreement to resolve their legal dispute, bringing an abrupt end to the contentious battle.
“The parties in the Blake Lively and Wayfarer Studios litigation have reached an agreement to resolve the matters,” lawyers for both sides said in a joint statement.
“The end product — the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
In June, a federal judge ordered Baldoni and his production company to pay Lively’s attorney fees related to his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against her, but rejected her bid for additional damages.
“So, how are we doing?” the filmmaker said in the Instagram video. “We are healing, and if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear. It lives different every day, and we have had to rethink for ourselves what is real. What matters, and it’s this. It’s our family. It’s our friends. It’s our community. It’s our faith.”
Times staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this report.
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