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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 Meiner’s proposal would terminate O Cinema’s lease and withdraw $40,000 in promised grant funding. In a newsletter sent to residents on Tuesday, Meiner condemned the film as “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents”.
Meiner had previously urged the O Cinema to cancel scheduled screenings of the documentary, citing criticism from Israeli and German officials. According to the mayor’s newsletter, O Cinema’s CEO, Vivian Marthell, allegedly agreed to withdraw the film from programming, citing “concerns of antisemitic rhetoric”, but Meiner claimed she reversed her decision the following day. The screenings sold out and the cinema added additional dates in March.
“Our 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,” 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 “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”.
A White House official told the Free Press that Khalil, who was arrested without charge, poses a “threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States” and the “allegation here is not that he was breaking the law”.
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 mayor’s negative assessment of the film but cautioned against a “kneejerk reaction” that could trigger “costly legal battles”, and noted O Cinema’s “longstanding commitment to the Jewish community”.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida has called the mayor’s retaliation against O Cinema unconstitutional. “The government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them,” Daniel Tilley, the branch’s legal director, told Axios.
Free speech advocates are also mobilizing against what they see as dangerous government overreach targeting constitutional rights.
“Screening movies to make sure they conform to local censors’ tastes is a practice we left behind with the red scare,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire).
“If the first amendment doesn’t mean that a movie theater can show an Oscar-winning film, something is seriously wrong.”
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 mayor’s proposal to cancel the cinema’s lease is set for a commission vote next Wednesday.
