In a letter to academy members on Friday, CEO Bill Kramer and president Janet Yang expressed regret for failing to issue a direct statement on Ballal. The director was attacked by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Monday, witnesses said, and was later detained by the Israeli military. The attack, which occurred just weeks after Ballal and his fellow directors won the Best Documentary Oscar, was widely condemned by numerous film organizations. On Wednesday, the academy released a statement condemning the harming or suppressing of artists for their work or viewpoints. However, Yuval Abraham, a journalist and co-director of No Other Land, criticized the academy’s response, calling it “silence on Hamdan’s assault.” On Friday, more than 600 of the academy’s 11,000 members signed an open letter expressing dissatisfaction with the academy’s statement. Signatories included Joaquin Phoenix, Olivia Colman, Riz Ahmed, Emma Thompson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and The Zone of Interest filmmaker Jonathan Glazer. Following a meeting of the academy’s board of governors on Friday, Kramer and Yang issued a new statement. “We sincerely apologize to Mr. Ballal and all artists who felt unsupported by our previous statement, and we want to make it clear that the academy condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world,” they wrote. “We abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances.” Ballal was detained for over 20 hours and released by Israeli soldiers. He and two other Palestinians were accused of throwing stones at a settler, which they deny. After his release, Ballal told The Associated Press that a settler kicked his head “like a football” during the attack. “I realized they were attacking me specifically,” he said. “When they say ‘Oscar,’ you understand. When they say your name, you understand.” No Other Land, a joint Israeli-Palestinian production, chronicles the situation in Masafer Yatta, an area designated by the Israeli military as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s. While around 1,000 residents remain in the area, soldiers frequently demolish homes, tents, water tanks, and olive orchards. Despite not finding a US distributor, No Other Land self-released in theatres, surpassing $2 million in North American box office earnings.
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