Who Is Still Alive Gets a November 27 U.S. Cinema Date
Watermelon Pictures will open the documentary Who Is Still Alive in New York and Los Angeles on November 27, and the film's North American trailer is now online, Deadline reported on November 2.
The film then moves to 10 more art-house markets on December 4. Art-house cinemas are smaller venues that tend to show independent and foreign-language films, so the rollout starts in the big cities and widens from there.
The documentary follows nine former residents of Gaza who now live as refugees in the Middle East and Europe. Each of them gives testimony about their life before the war and about the people they lost. According to the distributor's film page, the testimonies sit within crudely drawn outlines, a visual choice that keeps the focus on the speakers' words.
The film was made by Nicolas Wadimoff, a Geneva-born filmmaker who was born in 1964. Deadline reports that he will travel to the United States for screenings and question-and-answer sessions with audiences. Swiss Films describes Who Is Still Alive as Wadimoff's third film about Palestine, after Aisheen (Still Alive in Gaza) in 2010 and The Apollo of Gaza in 2018.
The documentary first appeared at Venice in 2025, in the Giornate degli Autori section, which is often called Venice Days. It then played at the Locarno festival, Hot Docs in Toronto and the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival. Festivals are where many documentaries find their first audiences and buyers, and the path from a festival premiere to a cinema date often takes a year or more.
Switzerland has now picked the film as its official submission for the 99th Academy Awards, the ceremony held in 2027. Watermelon Pictures announced the choice on Facebook on October 26. A submission is the first step in a country's bid for an Oscar. It is not a nomination.
Watermelon Pictures is also the North American distributor of other films in recent awards seasons. Deadline lists The Voice of Hind Rajab, Palestine 36 and All That's Left of You among its 2025-26 releases. The company's current slate also includes American Doctor, which is campaigning for a 2027 Oscar in the Best Documentary category.
For cinema-goers, the November 27 date places the film in the weeks before the year-end awards push, when many documentaries reach theatres. Anyone wanting to see it on a big screen will have that first chance in New York or Los Angeles, with the wider rollout following on December 4.
