MIAMI — A small arthouse cinema on Miami Beach faces the possible cancellation of its lease and the loss of $80,000 in grant money promised by the city after refusing to cancel screenings of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land (2024) following repeated intimidation attempts by the mayor.
The 90-minute film, co-directed by Palestinian journalist and activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, details the destruction of homes and displacement of Palestinian people by Israeli forces in Masafer Yatta in the Occupied West Bank. Despite earning international accolades, the documentary has struggled to find an American distributor, and the attempt to close O Cinema is the latest escalation in an ongoing campaign to stop it from being shown in Miami Beach.
On March 5, the city’s Mayor Steven Meiner sent a letter to the movie theater’s CEO Vivian Marthell demanding the cancellation of all planned screenings of No Other Land, claiming that the film had been “decried by government officials and other sources all over the world” and that the filmmakers’ acceptance speech at the Oscars had “prove[n] the anti-semitic nature of the film using Jew hatred propaganda.”
Though the theater initially relented and canceled its plans to show the film, the organization eventually decided to reverse course, reinstating all planned screenings and adding four additional showtimes next week.
“My initial reaction to Mayor Meiner’s threats was made under duress,” Marthell shared in a statement to Hyperallergic. “After reflecting on the broader implications for free speech and O Cinema’s mission, I (along with the O Cinema board and staff members) agreed it was critical to screen this acclaimed film.”
It’s not the first time the Miami Beach government is accused of silencing speech supportive of Palestinians or critical of Israel. Mayor Meiner previously drew criticism from First Amendment rights advocates when the city passed a resolution that restricted public gathering to certain areas after a coalition of pro-Palestine activists and artists demonstrated outside of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2023.
The City of Miami Beach has not responded to Hyperallergic’s requests for comment.
O Cinema, the first local theater to program No Other Land, has served the Miami community since 2011 with the mission of showing audiences high-quality films that they might otherwise not see in South Florida. In her March 6 response to Meiner’s letter, CEO Marthell wrote about the theater’s long-standing partnership with the Miami Jewish Film Festival and its ongoing Holocaust film series.
“The selection of this film has been driven by our commitment to offering the community an opportunity to experience Oscar-nominated and award-season films firsthand. No Other Land fits that criteria,” Marthell said in the letter to Meiner.
In a newsletter about municipal matters sent to constituents Tuesday evening, March 11, Mayor Meiner included a section called “O Cinema O My” in which he quoted Marthell’s response and shared his own critique of the acclaimed documentary, calling it “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people” that “is not consistent with the values of our City and residents (I watched the film).” In another paragraph, Meiner stated, “I am a staunch believer in free speech.”
That same evening, Miami Herald reporter Aaron Leibowitz shared a copy of a resolution on X proposed by the mayor and city commission directing the city manager to terminate O Cinema’s lease and grant agreements.
The theater, currently housed at 1130 Washington Avenue in South Beach, moved several times before landing in its current one-screen room, transitioning into a series of city-owned spaces on Miami Beach in 2019 after the redevelopment of its original location in the Wynwood neighborhood.
In an interview with Hyperallergic, O Cinema co-founder and documentary filmmaker Kareem Tabsch said that the organization felt blindsided by the threat of losing the space, which has a small film-centric library and cafe as well as a collection of ephemera, making it a unique space for cinephiles in South Florida.
“It’s housed so many films from people of different backgrounds, and we are a community space that intersects with other organizations and brings them onto Miami Beach,” Tabsch said, referencing the theatre’s programming with regional partners like the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers and local organizations like the Miami Film Festival.
In the past, O Cinema has offered screening series like Lift Every Voice, explicitly aimed at highlighting queer and BIPOC filmmakers in a state that has gained an increasing reputation for far-right and hateful politics.
”I really worry about the reputation of the city,” Tabsch said. “What does this say to the international arts community? What happens to the artist who wants to show at Art Basel, or the organizers of Art Basel? Do you really want to be aligned with a city that is known for censoring artists and arts organizations?”
“There’s a huge economic impact that we’re not talking about yet, but this is bad for the community of Miami Beach, it’s bad for the economy,” he continued. “Arts and culture is a huge driver of our economy, and artists and art presenters do not take well to censorship.”
This controversy has come at an already busy time, as the theatre is focused on opening a second location in the mainland neighborhood of Little River that would also include spaces for classes and workshops. The South Beach location is currently closed while the screen is replaced, which would be a wasted expense if the mayor is successful in evicting them from their home of more than five years. But Tabsch was insistent that O Cinema wants to stay on Miami Beach and continue to serve this community as well as neighborhoods inland.
Daniel Tilley, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, has already called the mayor’s retaliation “unconstitutional.” The proposed resolution to close the theater will be debated at a hybrid commission meeting on Wednesday, March 19 at 8:30am, where there will be a chance for public comment, and Mayor Meiner will also hold a virtual town hall on Tuesday at 5:30pm.
Tabsch urged concerned local and national members of the art and film community to make their outrage known to the elected officials involved, and was hopeful that an amicable solution would be found that would allow the theatre to stay in this location.
“To think that we survived a global pandemic and now might be up against a local government that’s just deciding it no longer wants us to operate is crazy,” Tabsch told Hyperallergic.
“We don’t want to leave,” she continued. “This is the second theatre we’ve opened in Miami Beach. We love Miami Beach … We do not want to see a Miami Beach without O Cinema.”
The city is threatening to close O Cinema after it refused to cancel screenings of No Other Land, the Oscar-winning film about Israel’s displacement of Palestinians.
