The director of an Academy Award nominated film was detained Tuesday night at LAX. Emad Burnat is the first Palestinian filmmaker to receive an Oscar nomination. He was on his way to Los Angeles to attend the celebration… but there was something that immigration officials didn’t like about him.

Burnat was detained for over an hour and threatened with being sent back to Turkey. He had to get in touch with Michael Moore who contacted Academy officials and lawyers to secure Burnat’s release.

As someone who has lived under occupation for all his life, the filmmaker says he’s used to such treatment, but that doesn’t make it right. He spoke to Huffington Post about the ordeal.

5 Broken Cameras chronicles Burnat’s documentation of life under Israeli occupation. The title is self explanatory. It’s a great film and if you have a Netflix account, you can watch it here.

Burnat co-directed the film with Israeli director, and there has been much controversy about the film’s ‘country’ of origin. Needless to say, Davidi doesn’t need to worry about being being harassed by immigration and customs officials.

I haven’t seen the other Oscar award nominated documentaries this year, but I do hope that Burnat and Davidi walk away with golden statues on Sunday night.