Gaza Documentary Backed by Jonathan Glazer Sets Venice Ovation Record

A documentary built on the testimony of Israeli soldiers about civilian deaths in Gaza received an ovation of around 25 minutes at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday, the longest recorded in the festival's history.

NAZA is directed by the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who shared the Oscar for best documentary last year for No Other Land. Its executive producer is the British director Jonathan Glazer, who led the applause as the screening ended.

What the film contains

The 80-minute documentary is the product of an investigation lasting nearly three years. It features interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and officers, most of them from military intelligence, who were filmed at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv and whose identities have been digitally disguised.

They describe the systems behind Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza after the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, including an AI-assisted targeting programme known as Lavender, which drew on telecommunications surveillance data. Abraham, who is also a journalist, has previously reported on the Israeli military's use of artificial intelligence in selecting targets.

The title is taken from a Hebrew military abbreviation for collateral damage: the number of civilian deaths anticipated before a strike is approved. One interviewee compares the process to a factory operating on a mass scale.

Abraham said the aim had been to learn in as much detail as possible "how the systems of killing in Gaza looked". The filmmakers describe the killing of civilians as "premeditated, calculated and intentional".

Israel rejects that characterisation. It says it seeks to avoid civilian casualties and accuses Hamas of embedding its fighters in civilian areas, and the military has disputed some of the reporting on which the film draws.

The British connection

The film's most prominent backers are British. Glazer won the Oscar for best international feature in March 2024 for The Zone of Interest, his portrait of the family of the commandant of Auschwitz, and used his acceptance speech to speak about the war in Gaza. The film's producer, James Wilson, also produced The Zone of Interest.

Some viewers in Venice drew parallels between the two works, both of which focus on the bureaucratic and technical machinery of mass killing rather than on graphic images of violence.

A record on the Lido

The previous record was set at last year's festival by The Voice of Hind Rajab, a drama about a Palestinian girl killed in Gaza, which received 23 minutes and 50 seconds of applause. Its director, Kaouther Ben Hania, is a member of this year's competition jury.

Ovation timings at Venice are measured informally by journalists in the room and vary slightly, with some putting the reaction to NAZA at 24 and a half minutes. By any measure it far exceeded the reception given to other titles this year. Outside the screening, onlookers shouted rival slogans in support of Palestinians and of Israel as the filmmakers arrived.

A politically charged festival

The premiere came late in a festival shadowed by political disputes. Before it began, industry figures including Roger Waters and the Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux signed an open letter calling on organisers to take concrete action in support of Palestinians. The selection of DAU, a Soviet-era epic by the Russian-born director Ilya Khrzhanovsky, has also been condemned by the Ukrainian government.

What happens next

NAZA is now seen as a serious contender for the Golden Lion. The jury, led by the American actor and director Maggie Gyllenhaal, will announce its awards on Saturday 12 September, the festival's final day.

A prize would put the documentary at the centre of an already heated international debate, and would raise its profile with distributors and audiences in Britain and beyond.

Image: Derbrauni via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0