NAZA Gaza documentary sole Golden Lion contender at Venice — SkimNews
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- NAZA, a Guardian-produced documentary about Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza, will receive its world premiere at the Venice film festival as the sole documentary competing for the Golden Lion
- Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor direct NAZA; they are two of the four directors behind No Other Land, which won the 2025 Academy Award for best documentary
- NAZA was produced by Jim Wilson and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, the team behind The Zone of Interest
- The film-makers said NAZA was "shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv" and "reveals in detail the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza"
- NAZA is an Israeli military acronym that the Guardian says is "used euphemistically by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians that it expects will be killed in an airstrike"
- The documentary builds on original investigative reporting conducted between 2023 and 2025 by Israeli-Palestinian publication +972, Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, and the Guardian
- After No Other Land's Oscar win, co-director Hamdan Ballal was attacked by Israeli settlers and briefly arrested, prompting an apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for initially failing to name him in a statement of support
Why it matters: Slotting NAZA into Venice's main competition — rather than a sidebar section — gives investigative reporting on Israeli military targeting its highest-profile platform yet, while naming the film after an Israeli intelligence euphemism for expected civilian deaths signals the documentary will press that case directly rather than soften it for a festival audience.
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