NAZA, the award-winning documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, is set for a theatrical rollout across 56 territories before being made available worldwide for free on the Guardian’s website, the newspaper announced Thursday.
The Guardian-produced film premiered earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a 25-minute standing ovation and later won the Special Jury Prize. After subsequent screenings in Bologna and at the San Sebastián Film Festival, it is due to make its North American premiere Saturday at the New York Film Festival.
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor
(Photo: David Levene/The Guardian)
The film will open four days later at New York’s IFC Center before expanding to Los Angeles and other major U.S. cities on Oct. 9, followed by a wider national rollout.
MK2 Films is handling a broader theatrical release in 55 additional territories, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, Brazil, Thailand, France, Spain, Germany, Central America and the Middle East.
Once its cinema run ends, NAZA will be available to watch free on the Guardian website. The newspaper said the move was part of its commitment to making independent journalism widely accessible.
Harry Davies, a Guardian investigations correspondent and one of the film’s producers, said the documentary grew out of three years of investigative reporting but was also intended to work as a film for audiences around the world.
A number of distributors and cinemas in Israel have also been offered the documentary, while the Guardian said it was examining ways to make it available in the Palestinian territories.
NAZA was filmed largely at night on Tel Aviv rooftops and features interviews with 24 anonymous members of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment. The documentary examines Israeli targeting practices in Gaza and includes testimony about the calculation of expected civilian casualties and the use of artificial intelligence in selecting targets.
Its title refers to a military acronym that the filmmakers say is used within Israeli intelligence to describe the number of civilians expected to be killed in a strike. The film builds on reporting previously published by the Guardian, +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call between 2023 and 2025.
The filmmakers present the documentary as an examination of what they describe as systems behind the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Israeli officials and political figures have fiercely attacked the film and its creators, while the allegations presented in the documentary have also drawn broader international attention.
Speaking Thursday, Abraham and Szor said they made the film because they felt a responsibility, as Israelis, to scrutinize their country’s conduct in Gaza.
“The threats from the Israeli government to revoke our citizenship and the death threats do not change that and will not stop the film,” they said, adding that they intended to bring NAZA to audiences around the world.
The film has become the center of an escalating controversy in Israel since Venice. Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar accused Abraham and Szor of “treason against the state” and called for their citizenship to be revoked.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently said he would promote legislation allowing citizenship to be stripped from Israelis who, in his words, “smear” IDF soldiers or “defame” the state.
The backlash also moved beyond official statements. Right-wing activists demonstrated outside Szor’s parents’ home, where police and Border Police officers were deployed. One protester called for the “death penalty for traitors,” according to the Guardian.
The response prompted a counterwave of support. More than 1,500 Israeli filmmakers signed a petition defending freedom of expression and expressing solidarity with Abraham and Szor, while 43 Israeli human rights organizations urged authorities to halt what they described as incitement and threats against the directors.
International filmmakers and artists, including Joshua Oppenheimer, Laura Poitras, Ken Loach, Nan Goldin and Hanif Kureishi, have also publicly backed the pair.
Abraham and Szor previously co-directed No Other Land with Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
NAZA is executive produced by The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer, with his longtime collaborator James Wilson also serving as a producer.
Despite the political fallout surrounding the documentary, its creators said the worldwide release would proceed. “The threats,” Abraham and Szor said, “will not stop the film.”