Oscar-Winning Israeli Directors' Gaza Bombing Documentary Set for Venice Premiere

A documentary naming the Israeli military's own euphemism for expected civilian deaths will open at the Venice Film Festival this month.

The film, called NAZA, is directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the four co-directors behind No Other Land, which won the 2025 Academy Award for best documentary. It is produced by the Guardian and Jim Wilson, and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, the team behind The Zone of Interest. Venice organizers have listed it as the only documentary in competition this year for the festival's Golden Lion.

According to a Guardian statement, NAZA is an Israeli military acronym used internally by intelligence officers to designate the number of civilians expected to be killed in a given airstrike. That claim has not been independently documented in the source material reviewed for this article and rests on the Guardian's editorial characterization.

"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 filmmakers said in their announcement.

The film builds on investigative reporting published between 2023 and 2025 by the Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972, the Hebrew-language site Local Call, and the Guardian itself, work that has previously examined Israeli targeting protocols and civilian casualty tolerances during the war.

Abraham and Szor made No Other Land alongside Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, a film the Guardian's chief critic called a "sombre, sobering work." That film documented the demolition of Palestinian communities in the West Bank's Masafer Yatta.

The project's aftermath became its own story. After No Other Land won the Oscar, Ballal was attacked by Israeli settlers and briefly arrested, according to the Guardian. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences later apologized for issuing a statement of support that failed to name either Ballal or the film.

NAZA's premiere puts a Guardian-backed production, made by Israeli filmmakers, in direct competition at one of cinema's most watched festivals, built explicitly around the machinery Israel's own intelligence apparatus is said to use to calculate acceptable civilian death tolls in Gaza. Occupation Watch will follow the film's reception and any Israeli government or military response once it screens.