ROME, Aug 25 — A documentary about the Israeli war in Gaza by the directors of the Oscar-winning No Other Land has been added to the line-up of the Venice Film Festival just days before the competition opens, German Press Agency (dpa) reported, citing the organisers on Monday.
NAZA was directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the four-person directing team behind the 2024 documentary No Other Land, about the destruction of Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
The new film about the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza is set to compete for the Golden Lion in Venice.
“Shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, the film reveals in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” the festival’s synopsis reads.
Throughout the conflict, the Israeli military insisted it was aiming only at terrorists and seeking to avoid civilian casualties.
The term “NAZA” is a “military acronym euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians that it expects will be killed in an airstrike,” The Guardian said.
The new film was produced by The Guardian and James Wilson. Director Jonathan Glazer served as executive producer.
Wilson and Glazer previously collaborated on The Zone of Interest, which won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film in 2024.
No Other Land earned Abraham and Szor the Documentary Award at the 2024 Berlinale before winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film in 2025.
There was uproar at the Berlin awards ceremony after Abraham accused the Israeli government of “apartheid,” which prompted accusations of anti-Semitism. — Bernama-dpa
