Gaza Documentary Produced by the Guardian to Receive World Premiere at Venice Film Festival A new documentary titled NAZA, directed by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival, marking its world debut. The film, produced by the Guardian, focuses on the Israeli military’s bombing campaign in Gaza, examining what the directors describe as “Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians” during the conflict. The documentary is the sole entry in the festival’s documentary category this year, competing for the prestigious Golden Lion award. Abraham and Szor, who previously co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land (2025), are collaborating again on NAZA. The film was produced alongside Jim Wilson and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, known for his work on The Zone of Interest. The directors revealed that the film was shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, offering a detailed look at the systems they claim underpin Israel’s targeted civilian casualties in Gaza. The Guardian emphasized that the title NAZA is an Israeli military acronym used euphemistically by Israeli intelligence to denote the number of civilians expected to be killed in an airstrike. The documentary builds on investigative reporting conducted between 2023 and 2025 by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972, the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, and the Guardian itself. This collaborative effort aims to shed light on the human cost of the conflict, blending on-the-ground reporting with historical context. No Other Land, the previous documentary by Abraham, Szor, Basel Adra, and Hamdan Ballal, was praised by the Guardian’s chief film critic, Peter Bradshaw, as a “sombre, sobering work.#venice_film_festival #guardian #yuval_abraham #rachel_szor #jim_wilson
