Miami Beach mayor drops proposal to evict O Cinema for screening ‘No Other Land’
Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner on Wednesday withdrew a controversial proposal to evict O Cinema from a city-owned building for screening an Oscar-winning documentary about the West Bank.
At a raucous Miami Beach City Commission meeting where the vast majority of attendees opposed Meiner’s proposal, Meiner said he was withdrawing the item and deferring an alternative proposal to encourage the theater to show films that “highlight a fair and balanced viewpoint.”
The decision came after five of Meiner’s colleagues said they would oppose the eviction proposal, which also called for pulling city grant funding to the theater. Commissioners Tanya Katzoff Bhatt, Laura Dominguez, Alex Fernandez, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and Joseph Magazine indicated that they wouldn’t support the resolution. Commissioner David Suarez was the lone commissioner to express his support.
“I really am appreciative of the passion that we saw today,” Meiner said.
“No Other Land,” which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature earlier this month, documents the destruction of a group of Palestinian villages in the West Bank at the hands of the Israeli military. The film also highlights the alliance between Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who are two of the film’s directors.
Meiner, who is Jewish and a staunch supporter of Israel, said he had brought the proposal “as a public safety measure” due to concerns about rising antisemitism.
“I legitimately viewed this as a public safety threat,” Meiner said.
Miriam Haskell, a lawyer for the Miami-based Community Justice Project that is representing O Cinema along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said Meiner “was right to withdraw the resolution to evict and defund O Cinema.”
“The community has spoken clearly today: They will not tolerate censorship of the arts,” Haskell said. “We will remain vigilant against future retaliation against O Cinema and other cultural institutions for choosing to portray or not portray a particular viewpoint.”
O Cinema CEO Vivian Marthell said she felt supported by all of the speakers who showed up in person and virtually.
“It has been very emotional,” she said. “I’m feeling supported by the community I serve and feel supported by my cultural colleagues, and I feel supported from the commission that feels and understands the right to free speech.”
After a contentious public comment period and discussion among the City Commission, which featured dozens of speakers and taunts and jeers from the audience, Meiner sought to conclude the conversation with a more conciliatory tone, inviting members of the public to the dais for a group photograph with the city’s elected officials.
“Unity means we are striving for what’s best for our city and our community,” Meiner said.
Meiner had urged O Cinema in a March 5 letter to refrain from screening what he called “one-sided propaganda.” Marthell responded the next day that the theater would not show the film based on “concerns of antisemitic rhetoric” but reversed course the following day after conversations with the theater’s staff and board of directors.
Several commissioners proposed alternative ways of moving forward to foster dialogue by showing films from various perspectives. But ultimately, they said they felt it wasn’t their place to dictate the content shown by arts and culture organizations.
“I wholeheartedly believe in free speech, whether I agree with it or find it absolutely abhorrent,” said Magazine, adding that he supports both the Jewish community and the right to free speech and that “those things are not mutually exclusive.”
Katzoff Bhatt said she did not approve of the way Meiner or the theater handled the situation. But she noted that O Cinema has supported the Jewish community in the past by showing films about the Holocaust and hosting the Miami Jewish Film Festival.
“What I even find most upsetting is the false narrative that you are either a raging antisemite and Hamas supporter or you support censorship,” she said. “That is a B.S., false binary choice.”
Suarez, who was the sole supporter of Meiner’s resolution, took a different view, saying he believes the film spreads “propaganda from Hamas” and that the city has authority to regulate what is shown at a government-funded theater.
“This is not about free speech, this is about government policy,” he said. “If this film were playing at Regal Cinemas, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now.”
Meiner’s effort to terminate O Cinema’s lease drew a wave of backlash, including an open letter from hundreds of filmmakers and statements from local artists and advocates expressing their support for the theater. Many speakers Wednesday raised concerns about the First Amendment implications of the mayor’s eviction proposal.
The theater had responded by threatening legal action in recent days.
O Cinema’s lease at the old City Hall building in South Beach gave the city power to terminate the agreement without cause. But after Meiner said in a newsletter to residents last week that he wished to evict the theater in direct response to its screening of “No Other Land” over his objections, the theater’s legal team argued it was a clear case of “viewpoint censorship” by a local government.
“The statements in his email clearly make out a First Amendment claim,” ACLU of Florida Legal Director Daniel Tilley said Tuesday at a press conference.
The theater signed a five-year lease in 2019 that was renewed last year until July 2026.
READ MORE: Miami Beach mayor’s plan to evict O Cinema has brought global backlash. Will it pass?
Two people who called in to support Meiner during a public comment period were the mayors of Hialeah and Miami, Esteban Bovo and Francis Suarez.
“We are completely in solidarity with you, Mayor Meiner, over your concerns over what is happening in a public theater,” Suarez said.
After Suarez surpassed the one-minute time limit imposed on other speakers, people in the commission chambers began to boo and drown out the Miami mayor’s comments. “One minute’s up!” people chanted.
The Consul General of Israel in Miami, Maor Elbaz-Starinsky, who spoke in person, was met with a similar chant after exceeding the one-minute limit.
“I am totally against censorship of art and all for freedom of art,” said Elbaz-Starinsky. “At the same time this freedom of art does not ... show the full picture and the context. We are in a very complicated situation.”
Miami Beach resident Charlotte Livov, who said she’s a journalist and author who is both Jewish and pro-Israel, said she opposed the legislation to end O Cinema’s lease.
“This isn’t the FCC. We have freedom of speech,” she said. “There is no issue more important than freedom of speech.”
Others challenged the mayor’s suggestion that “No Other Land” was a form of propaganda, saying the film helped shed light on the plight of Palestinians.
“It’s not propaganda, and it’s certainly not antisemitic to portray it,” said Brandon Heiblum, a former O Cinema employee. “They are documented realities. Silencing them does not make them untrue.”
Some speakers said the controversy actually brought more attention to the film and caused people who were previously unaware of it to go see it in Miami Beach or at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, where it was also being screened. Others who identified as filmmakers or artists pointed out that documentary films are often one-sided in nature, representing a particular viewpoint.
Several people also pushed back on Meiner’s claim at the meeting that his perspective on the film reflected the views of the “vast majority of Jewish people.” Many of the speakers in opposition to the mayor’s proposal identified as Jewish and expressed a range of supportive and critical views on Israel.
Adam Saper, a Miami Beach resident, said the mayor was trying to deny residents from hearing a Palestinian perspective.
“Controlling a narrative for a political purpose is quite literally the definition of propaganda,” he said.
Meiner’s alternative resolution encouraging the theater to show films showing differing perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wasdeferred to an unspecified future commission meeting. That resolution called for O Cinema to present “a fair and balanced viewpoint of the current war between the State of Israel and the groups Hamas and Hezbollah to ensure that the viewpoint of the Jewish people and the State of Israel is fully and accurately presented.”
Haskell, the lawyer for O Cinema, said she hopes that “the commissioners who defended free speech today will show their support for this important principle by helping ensure that O Cinema can stay where it is long-term.”
“This could include negotiating a long-term lease,” she said, “and finding other ways to support the cinema’s existence.”
The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza have inflamed tensions in Miami Beach on multiple occasions, as city leaders have sought to express support for Israel, and pro-Palestinian activists have held a series of protests in the city. Last year, Meiner and his colleagues imposed new restrictions on protests in response to the demonstrations.
This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 9:43 AM.
