A new documentary examining what its synopsis describes as the systems behind Israel’s “calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza” is set to compete for one of world cinema’s most prestigious prizes at the Venice International Film Festival.
NAZA, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, will premiere at the festival next month and compete for the Golden Lion. It is the only documentary among the 21 films selected for the festival’s main competition.
The filmmakers already have significant international recognition. Abraham and Szor were two of the four directors behind No Other Land, the Israeli-Palestinian documentary that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. That film followed Palestinian activists attempting to protect communities in the occupied West Bank from demolition by the Israeli military.
Their latest project shifts attention directly to Gaza.
According to the synopsis published on the Venice Film Festival website and cited by Dawn, NAZA investigates the systems surrounding the killing of Palestinian civilians during Israeli military operations in Gaza.
The title itself carries particular significance. The Guardian, which is producing the documentary, says “NAZA” is an Israeli military acronym used by Israeli intelligence to refer to the number of civilians it expects will be killed during an airstrike.
The documentary brings together several prominent names from internationally acclaimed political filmmaking.
NAZA is produced by The Guardian and James Wilson of JW Films, while filmmaker Jonathan Glazer serves as an executive producer. Wilson and Glazer previously worked together on The Zone of Interest, the Auschwitz-set film that won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
The film is scheduled to screen on September 10, with its directors, producers, Guardian journalists and the official delegation expected to attend the premiere.
Its inclusion in the Golden Lion competition gives the documentary an unusually prominent position. Documentaries often appear at major international festivals, but NAZA is the sole documentary competing alongside 20 other films for Venice’s highest honour this year.
The premiere is also likely to bring the Gaza war and questions surrounding civilian casualties into one of the global film industry’s most visible cultural spaces.
For Abraham and Szor, NAZA follows a film that already placed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the centre of international cinema. This time, their focus is Gaza, and the documentary will arrive in Venice not as a side programme screening, but as a contender for the festival’s biggest prize.
