NAZA, Once Upon a Time in Harlem Top Hot Springs Doc Fest — SkimNews
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- NAZA won HSDFF's Critics Prize, based on interviews with 24 anonymous Israeli military intelligence members and soldiers accusing Israel of callous disregard for Palestinian civilian life in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas attack; the IDF has rejected the film's claims, including its assertion that artificial intelligence was used to determine human targets.
- The Critics Prize jury praised NAZA for "skillful and subtle editing" that details "the ongoing genocide in Gaza as told by the soldiers tasked with carrying it out," and gave a Special Mention to Edward Said: Between Worlds, Maiken Baird's documentary on the Palestinian scholar and activist.
- Once Upon a Time in Harlem took Best Documentary Feature, a film assembled from 1972 footage shot by William Greaves capturing an unprecedented reunion of surviving members of the Harlem Renaissance.
- American Doctor earned a Special Mention in the feature category, profiling three American physicians—one Jewish, one Muslim, one Zoroastrian—who volunteered in Gaza to treat Palestinian children severely wounded by Israeli armaments.
- Jane Elliot Against the World won the Matt DeCample Audience Choice Award for Best Feature, documenting the Iowa educator whose "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes exercise" became a landmark tool for teaching how racism operates.
- Joe Berlinger received the Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award for a career spanning Brother's Keeper, the Paradise Lost trilogy, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and Crude; Yoruba Richen earned the Impact Award, and her film Free Joan Little won Best Documentary Short for revisiting a 1975 case of a Black woman who killed her rapist jailer in self-defense.
- The 35th HSDFF ran October 9–17 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, presented by Oaklawn under executive director Ken Jacobson, and debuted a Deadline partnership Documentary Roundtable featuring four Oscar-contending filmmakers.
Why it matters: The Critics Prize lands NAZA—made by the No Other Land Oscar-winning duo Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor—a major U.S. festival platform just as the film enters awards-season contention built on the testimony of 24 anonymous Israeli soldiers, sharpening its profile against the IDF's public rejection of its core claims.
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