Mark Ruffalo Has Called Hamdan Ballal’s Assault And Detainment “An Attack” On Filmmaking After The Palestinian Director Was Targeted By Israeli Settlers Three Weeks After His Oscar Win

At the end of January, it was announced that the 2024 documentary No Other Land had been nominated for an Academy Award, with the film — made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four activists — showing the destruction of a Palestinian community in the Israel-occupied West Bank through footage that was recorded between 2019 and 2023.

In an interview with Haaretz ahead of the ceremony, one of No Other Land’s Palestinian directors, Basel Adra, made some pretty ominous comments as he discussed the nomination, saying: “I don’t care about the Oscar. I live in a completely different reality from the world of Hollywood or Bollywood... Even if we get there and succeed, I will go back to my cruel reality. But I also understand that an Academy Award, as a prize, is important to people, and I hope this will serve the good of our struggle. That’s the only thing that interests me in this whole story."

As you probably know, during the 2025 Academy Awards earlier this month, No Other Land won the Best Documentary Oscar, and Adra took to the stage alongside the movie’s other three directors: Israeli investigative journalist Yuval Abraham, Israeli film director Rachel Szor, and Palestinian movie director Hamdan Ballal.

And just three weeks after the filmmakers’ Oscars high, Adra’s previous comments about having to return to his “cruel reality” regardless have been affirmed, with Adra reporting on Monday evening that his Palestinian co-director, Hamdan Ballal, had been attacked and detained by the Israeli military alongside two other Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

After news of the attack on Ballal broke, Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo was among the people to express their outrage over what had happened, and called on everybody in the industry to come together “in protest.”

Commenting on an Indie Wire Instagram post about Ballal’s detainment, Mark wrote: “Every film maker and academy member should be acting together in protest. No matter where you stand on this issue this is an attack on our beloved art from of film making. Hamden Ballal is a political prisoner and this is an international incident and violation of human rights. Many of us are not surprised by this behavior from the lawless settlers and the IDF at this point. Kill journalists and abducting film makers is not an accident but a design for the eradication of a people and their culture. Free Ballal!”

Early on Tuesday morning, he clarified: “Note: Hamdan was assaulted and beaten up, not murdered. My use of ‘lynched’ was a mistranslation from Hebrew (English isn’t my first language). He’s injured and being held at a police station in a settlement. They did not let his lawyer speak to him yet so we don’t know more.”

We will be sure to keep you posted on any further developments.