Note: Solutions Not Sides makes no attempt to reconcile or support any of these films or TV shows, or the narratives they show, but we believe it is important to understand different side’s perspectives and the way that their societies present and understand events.
You can find Parts One & Two and Three on our blog.
1: ‘Mayor’ (2020) David Osit
Mayor, directed by David Osit, is a quietly powerful documentary that follows Ramallah’s mayor, Musa Hadid, over two years, blending the mundane realities of local governance with the ever-present political tensions. Shot with warmth and precision, the film captures both lighthearted moments, like community debates and Christmas celebrations and stark scenes of tear gas and street clashes, while always keeping Musa’s humour, humility, and dedication to his citizens at its heart. By focusing on everyday municipal politics rather than grand political gestures, Mayor offers a deeply human, engrossing insight into life in Ramallah.
2: ‘No Other Land’ (2024) Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham
This Oscar winning film is an intimate, ground-level documentary about life in Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian community in the West Bank threatened with demolition and displacement. Shot over five years, much of it on the ground by Basel Adra himself, the film blends eyewitness testimony with striking visuals to show the resilience of residents facing forced eviction by the Israeli military. What makes No Other Land especially powerful is its collaborative nature, made by both Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers. It offers a rare and deeply human perspective on one of the world’s most entrenched conflicts.
3: ‘House’ (1980), ‘A House in Jerusalem (1998), ‘News from Home/News from House’ (2006) Amos Gitai
The House trilogy by Amos Gitai is a landmark series of documentaries exploring the layered history of a single West Jerusalem home. Built by Palestinians in the 1930s, seized after 1948, and later inhabited by different waves of residents, the house becomes a prism through which Gitai examines displacement, memory, and contested narratives of land and belonging. Filmed over three decades, the trilogy captures the evolving stories of its occupants while reflecting on the broader Israeli–Palestinian conflict, making the house itself a powerful metaphor for the unresolved struggles of the region.
News from Home/News from House on IMBD
4: ‘Louis Theroux: The Settlers’ (2025) Josh Baker
In this BBC documentary well known journalist Louis Theroux returns to the West Bank fourteen years after his earlier documentary The Ultra Zionists, this time investigating the growing community of religious-nationalist Israelis who have settled there. The film embeds Theroux among settlers including Daniella Weiss and the Palestinians whose lives are affected by settlement expansion, checkpoints, and escalating tensions since October 2023. Theroux uses his signature mix of curiosity and confrontation to expose how once fringe ideologies have become increasingly mainstream in government, and to explore the human cost of settler activism.
Louis Theroux: The Settlers on IMBD
5: ‘Holding Liat’ (2025) Brandon Kramer
This is a moving documentary that follows the ordeal of Liat Beinin-Atzili, a teacher kidnapped from her kibbutz during the October 7 attacks and the subsequent efforts by her Israeli-American family to secure her release. While Liat is eventually released, her husband Aviv is killed. The film captures the raw grief, conflicting political views, and moral dilemmas within the family, especially between her parents, Yehuda and Chaya and portrays how personal tragedy becomes entangled with national identity, diplomacy, and the broader realities of war.
6: ‘The Mutes House’ (2015) Tamar Kay
Directed by Tamar Kay, this is a short documentary that follows Sahar, a deaf Palestinian woman, and her young son Yusuf, who live inside a Jewish settlement in Hebron, one of the most divided and tense cities in the West Bank. Through their daily lives, the film highlights themes of identity, resilience, and the human impact of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. While praised for its intimate and human-centered storytelling, it also drew controversy: some Palestinians criticized the use of the settler nickname “the Mute’s House” and felt the film risked normalizing occupation, while some Israeli viewers saw it as politically provocative for showing Palestinian life under settler control. This dual response reflected the sensitivities of depicting Hebron’s reality on both sides
7: ‘We Will Dance Again’ (2024) Yariv Moze
This is a harrowing documentary that reconstructs the horrifying events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked the Nova Music Festival near the Gaza–Israel border. As revelers danced into the early morning, rockets were initially mistaken for fireworks; confusion turned into terror as gunfire erupted, the festival site was breached, people were shot, some kidnapped, and others hid in makeshift shelters. The film is pieced together through survivors’ testimonies, mobile phone footage, CCTV, and even body-cam clips from the attackers to create a minute-by-minute portrait of chaos, fear, heroism, loss—and trauma. It doesn’t shy away from the graphic details and emotional weight, and closes with a tentative hope (reflected in the title) while revealing how deeply lives were altered. The documentary won the 2025 News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary
8: ‘Omar’ (2013) Hany Abu-Assad
Palestinian drama-thriller that follows a young Palestinian man, Omar, who routinely risks his life crossing the separation wall to visit his friends and his secret lover, Nadia. When Omar and his friends become involved in the resistance against the Israeli occupation, Omar is captured by Israeli forces and coerced into becoming an informant. The film explores trust, betrayal, love, and the psychological toll of life under occupation, as Omar struggles to navigate divided loyalties between his cause, his friends, and his own sense of integrity. Critically acclaimed for its tension and realism, Omar was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is noted for its intimate portrayal of everyday life under political oppression, blending personal drama with a sharp political edge.
9: ‘The Sea’ (2025) Shai Carmeli-Pollak
This is an Israeli made drama that follows Khaled, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who sets out alone to see the Mediterranean Sea after being denied permission to join his school trip due to an invalid travel permit. As his father, an undocumented labourer in Israel, desperately searches for him, the film unfolds as a moving and symbolic journey about freedom, separation, and the human cost of political barriers. Acclaimed for its emotional depth and realism, The Sea won five Ophir Awards, including Best Film, and was selected as Israel’s entry for the 2026 Academy Awards.
10: ‘An Orange from Jaffa’ (2024) Mohammed Almughanni
This is a moving short film that follows a young Palestinian man attempting to cross an Israeli checkpoint to reach his fiancée in East Jerusalem. What seems like a simple journey becomes a tense and emotional ordeal as he faces the daily restrictions, delays, and humiliations imposed by the occupation. Through quiet, observational storytelling, the film captures the deep human impact of borders and bureaucracy — turning an everyday act of love into an act of resistance. It’s a poignant reflection on movement, dignity, and the longing for normalcy amid political constraint.