Florida mayor seeks to evict cinema for showing Oscar-winning documentary
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 Meinerās proposal would terminate O Cinemaās lease and withdraw $40,000 in promised grant funding. In a newsletter sent to residents on Tuesday, Meiner condemned the film as āa false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residentsā.
Meiner had previously urged the O Cinema to cancel scheduled screenings of the documentary, citing criticism from Israeli and German officials. According to the mayorās newsletter, O Cinemaās CEO, Vivian Marthell, allegedly agreed to withdraw the film from programming, citing āconcerns of antisemitic rhetoricā, but Meiner claimed she reversed her decision the following day. The screenings sold out and the cinema added additional dates in March.
āOur decision to screen NO OTHER LAND is not a declaration of political alignment. It is, however, a bold reaffirmation of our fundamental belief that every voice deserves to be heard,ā Marthell told the Miami Herald.
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.
Tensions over free speech and Palestinian activism nationwide have been further heightened this week after Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia student activist and green-card holder who helped lead the Palestinian solidarity movement during the college encampments last year, was detained by immigration authorities. The US president, Donald Trump, has alleged without evidence that Khalil has links to āpro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activityā.
A White House official told the Free Press that Khalil, who was arrested without charge, poses a āthreat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United Statesā and the āallegation here is not that he was breaking the lawā.
A recent Gallup poll shows support for Israel has plummeted to a 25-year low, while Palestinian sympathy has surged.
Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, a Miami Beach commissioner, said she shared the mayorās negative assessment of the film but cautioned against a ākneejerk reactionā that could trigger ācostly legal battlesā, and noted O Cinemaās ālongstanding commitment to the Jewish communityā.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has called the mayorās retaliation against O Cinema unconstitutional. āThe government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them,ā Daniel Tilley, the branchās legal director, told Axios.
Miami Beach has faced past controversy over artistic expression in 2019, when the city removed a portrait of Raymond Herisse, a Black man fatally shot by Beach police, from a city art project.
The mayorās proposal to cancel the cinemaās lease is set for a commission vote next Wednesday.
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