selected for the Venice film festival. Photograph: Venice Film Festival/APNAZA, selected for the Venice film festival. Photograph: Venice Film Festival/AP
Guardian-produced Gaza documentary from Oscar-winning Israeli directors of No Other Land to screen at Venice film festival
Film directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, co-directors of No Other Land along with Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal , investigates ‘Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians’ during the war
A new documentary about Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, directed by Oscar-winning directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by the Guardian, is to receive its world premiere at the Venice film festival.
The film, called NAZA, has been produced with Jim Wilson and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, the team behind The Zone of Interest, and is the only documentary that will compete this year for Venice’s prestigious Golden Lion.
Abraham and Szor are the two Israeli directors of the four behind No Other Land, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 2025.
Announcing the news, the film-makers said: “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 Guardian added in a statement that NAZA is an Israeli military acronym 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 between 2023 and 2025 by Israeli-Palestinian publication +972, Hebrew-language outlet Local Call and the Guardian.
No Other Land, which was directed by Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal alongside Abraham and Szor, was described as a “sombre, sobering work” by the Guardian’s chief film critic Peter Bradshaw.
Shortly after No Other Land’s Oscar win, Ballal was attacked by Israeli settlers and briefly arrested, following which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologised after failing to name Ballal or the film in a statement of support.
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