Alfred Spellman & Billy Corben on Miami Beach Mayor's threat to O Cinema
Join us for a Live Video on Monday at 3pm EST
Join us for a Substack Live Video with
, Billy Corben and Thom Powers on Monday March 17 at 3pm EST.They'll discuss the campaign to save O Cinema, following the recent effort by Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner to evict the theater because it screened the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land.
The case has been widely covered in The New York Times, Guardian, Miami Herald, NPR, and other news outlets.
The Miami Beach City Commission will vote on O Cinema’s future on Wednesday, March 18.
If you wish to make your voice heard on this issue before the vote, write to the city commissioners with this one-click email.
Filmmakers are invited to add their names to the open letter below.
For more on the Miami film scene and No Other Land, hear these podcast episodes from our archives…
Founders of the Miami Beach media studio rakontur and known for films including Cocaine Cowboys, Screwball and Men of War, hear Alfred and Billy interviewed by Thom on the Pure Nonfiction episode, “Made in Miami.”
No Other Land is directed by a collective of two Palestinians and two Israelis. They capture lives of Palestinians in the West Bank village of Masafer Yatta that's been routinely targeted by Israeli settlers and the military with violence and home demolitions. Taking place from 2019 to 2023, the film shows an alliance form between two of the directors – Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and Yuval Abraham from Israel – in their efforts to expose an injustice.
No Other Land won the Berlin Film Festival's jury and audience prizes in the Panorama section before winning Best Documentary at the 2025 Academy Awards.
Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers conducted this interview by Zoom reaching Basel Adra in Masafer Yatta and Yuval Abraham in Jerusalem. The film's other directors are Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor.
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