NAZA Documentary Sets Self-Distributed U.S. Theatrical Release — SkimNews
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- "NAZA" will begin U.S. theatrical distribution on Sept. 30 via a self-distribution model that forgoes selling to a studio or independent distributor, opening exclusively at the IFC Center in New York City.
- The Guardian and mk2 are spearheading the rollout with a team of U.S. and international partners and consultants, per Cinetic Media; the film expands to Los Angeles and other markets on Oct. 9 before a broader national rollout.
- Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — the Israeli filmmakers behind the Oscar-winning "No Other Land" — directed "NAZA," which won a special jury prize at the recent Venice Film Festival and has its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 26.
- "No Other Land" was also released in the U.S. through Cinetic rather than a traditional distributor, establishing the self-distribution template now applied to "NAZA."
- The film is produced by The Guardian and James Wilson (JW Films) and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer; it was shot at night on Tel Aviv rooftops over three years.
- "NAZA" is a military acronym Israeli intelligence uses for the number of civilians expected to be killed in an airstrike; the film reveals "the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza," per its synopsis.
- Abraham and Szor said they made the film "out of a sense of obligation" as Israeli filmmakers to examine the systems behind civilian killings "for which our country is responsible," noting their revelations were published by The Guardian with +972 Magazine and Local Call after the October 7 attacks.
Why it matters: By replicating the self-distribution path that delivered their Oscar-winning "No Other Land" to U.S. theaters, Abraham and Szor are skipping traditional gatekeepers and putting a Venice-prized, Guardian-produced Gaza documentary in front of American audiences within weeks rather than months — and doing so as Israeli filmmakers using their own military's terminology (NAZA = expected civilian deaths per airstrike) to publicly interrogate Israeli targeting systems.
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