The documentary NAZA, which draws on the testimony of 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel to reveal how civilians in Gaza are targeted using AI-assisted systems, has won the Special Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice Film Festival. Just hours after the award was announced, Israel’s Culture Minister said he had taken steps to explore revoking the filmmakers’ citizenship. The film is a powerful reminder of why documentation remains one of the most potent forms of resistance.
Photo: Primo Barol / AA
NAZA directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are no strangers to cinema audiences. Together with Palestinian directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, they won the 2025 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for No Other Land. This time, the camera moves from the villages of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank to the attics of Tel Aviv. The 80-minute film is based on interviews conducted over three years, at night, with 24 Israeli military and intelligence personnel whose identities are digitally concealed. Szor, who also serves as cinematographer, focuses the camera not on the witnesses’ faces but on the weight of what they have to say.
The film’s title comes from the Israeli military’s internal jargon. “NAZA” is an abbreviation of the Hebrew phrase nezek agavi, meaning “collateral damage”: a military term referring to the number of civilian deaths deemed acceptable in an air strike. Through the testimony of people within the system, the film examines how this number is determined, who approves it, and how the AI-based targeting system known as “Lavender” is used in the process. Abraham’s 2024 investigation into Lavender for +972 Magazine and Local Call, which was also published by The Guardian, forms the backbone of the film. The Guardian is also among the film’s producers, while The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer serves as an executive producer.
According to The Forward, one of the film’s most disturbing moments comes when a witness asks himself: “For me, the Nazis were evil… So what does that make me?” The question encapsulates the mirror the film holds up to Israeli society: NAZA presents itself not as an accusation from the outside, but as a confession from within.
Venice: A 25-Minute Standing Ovation and the Jury’s Decision
When NAZA had its world premiere in the main competition on 10 September, it received what was reported to be the longest standing ovation in the festival’s history, lasting approximately 25 minutes. Critics were similarly enthusiastic: the film left the festival with a 100 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 96. At the closing ceremony on 12 September, the jury chaired by Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose members included Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, awarded the film the Special Jury Prize.
The wider picture at this year’s Venice Film Festival was also striking. The Golden Lion went to Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown, while the film’s lead actor, Mathilde Arcel, won the Best Actress award. With a woman chairing the jury, a woman directing the winner of the festival’s top prize, and women occupying the director’s chair on its most talked-about documentary, the festival suggested that in world cinema, who gets to tell the story is becoming as significant as whose story is being told.
After thanking the jury as he accepted the award, Abraham turned his attention beyond the festival:
“The truth is that since this festival began, in these 10 days alone, Israel has killed at least six Palestinian children in Gaza. (…) This mass killing is systemic; it is not accidental, it is by design. (…) We believe that denying a crime is what allows that crime to continue.”
In his speech, Abraham said the film owed its existence to Palestinian journalists and commemorated the more than 200 journalists killed by Israel in Gaza: “Their voices were silenced and denied.” He then criticised the Italian and German governments for obstructing pressure on Israel and the United States for “financing much of the killing”, before calling on Western governments to impose economic sanctions.
Hours After the Award: “We Will Revoke Their Citizenship”
The Israeli government’s response was swift. Culture Minister Miki Zohar described the film as “disgusting”, called the award “shocking”, and accused the directors of “harming their own country in order to win applause from antisemites”. Zohar announced that he had instructed the Interior Ministry to investigate the legal grounds for revoking Abraham and Szor’s citizenship on the basis of “treason against the state” and “collaboration with the enemy”. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also described the directors as a “shame and disgrace”.
The Israeli military, meanwhile, argued that the film’s witnesses could not be “verified”, claiming that anonymous sources would not have access to such strategic information. It reiterated that every strike is approved by human decision-makers and that civilians are not deliberately targeted. The military’s objection is therefore directed not at the film’s central claim itself, but at the identities of its witnesses.
Legally, Zohar’s threat is not something a minister can carry out unilaterally. According to CBS News, revocation of citizenship would require an application by the Interior Ministry, approval from the Justice Ministry and a court ruling. Nevertheless, the threat itself sends a message: Israeli citizens who document how the war is being conducted now face the prospect of being placed in the category of the “enemy”. Abraham captured this atmosphere in his acceptance speech: “It is not easy to stand here while thinking of all those Israeli politicians and journalists who attacked and denied the film without even watching it.”
Why It Matters: Documentation as a Form of Struggle
NAZA’s place in the history of cinema will, of course, be debated. Its greater significance, however, lies in the reckoning it provokes over whose evidence is considered “credible”, and under what circumstances. Journalists in Gaza have been documenting the same system for more than two years; the result has been the deaths of more than 200 of their colleagues and the denial of their testimony. When the same account is voiced by witnesses who have worn Israeli military uniforms, it receives a standing ovation in Venice. Abraham’s decision to commemorate Palestinian journalists on stage was intended to make this inequality visible: the film is a continuation of their work, not a substitute for it.
Second, NAZA takes the debate over artificial intelligence and warfare out of abstract discussions of ethics and reduces it to a concrete question: when an algorithm proposes an acceptable number of civilian deaths as “collateral damage”, where does the responsibility of the human being who approves that number begin? The film’s answer comes through the witnesses’ own words, words that carry the same weight whether they are heard in a courtroom or placed before a censorship board.
Third, what has happened to the film should be understood as an indicator of the state of freedom of expression during wartime. When No Other Land won the Oscar, one of its directors, Hamdan Ballal, was assaulted by settlers in the West Bank and detained just weeks after receiving the award. Now the Israeli directors of NAZA are facing threats to their citizenship. The cost of documentation is rising on both sides; yet the fact that this cost is increasing is also an indication of the power that documentation can have.
NAZA will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival on 26 September, followed by a screening in San Sebastián. A release date in Türkiye has not yet been announced. When the film reaches wider audiences, the question will not simply be whether the film is “true”. As the responses of the Israeli government and military themselves demonstrate, the more fundamental question will be who is able to speak the truth, and at what cost.
Sources
CBS News — Israeli official calls for directors of “NAZA” documentary to have nationality revoked
i24NEWS — Gaza documentary ‘NAZA’ wins special jury prize at Venice
The Forward — Israel’s culture minister called this film ‘vile.’ It deserves to be seen.
Variety — Venice Film Festival Winners: May El-Toukhy’s ‘Woman Unknown’ Scores Golden Lion