NAZA, an 80-minute documentary built around anonymous testimony from 24 current and former Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers, won the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival after presenting allegations about how targeting decisions were made during the Gaza war.
Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the film received a lengthy standing ovation before the award, while the Israeli military has rejected its central claims and criticised its reliance on anonymous sources. The prize has since triggered a domestic backlash far removed from ordinary film criticism, including calls from a government minister for the directors to lose their citizenship.
Soldiers Describe the Targeting System
The documentary draws on testimony from 24 current and former military and intelligence personnel. They describe a system in which large amounts of surveillance data and artificial intelligence were allegedly used to identify possible targets, while commanders determined acceptable levels of civilian casualties around those targets.
The filmmakers say the title refers to an internal term associated with estimated collateral casualties.
Some accounts describe strikes in densely populated areas where civilian deaths were considered likely, and the filmmakers argue that AI increased the speed and scale at which possible targets could be generated. The Israeli military strongly disputes that interpretation, saying decisions to approve attacks remained in human hands and that technological systems were used to support intelligence analysis rather than independently select people for killing.
It has also criticised the documentary’s reliance on anonymous sources, arguing that testimony which cannot be independently verified should not be treated as settled fact.
Venice Turns Allegations into Art
The film’s reception in Venice has nevertheless been extraordinary. It received a record-breaking ovation before winning one of the festival’s principal awards, and the official festival programme lists Abraham and Szor as directors within the main Venezia 83 competition.
The award does not establish the documentary’s allegations as fact, since film festivals judge cinema rather than conduct military investigations.
But Venice has given the claims an enormous international audience, creating a difficult overlap between journalism, testimony and art. The documentary asks viewers to assess anonymous accounts while also presenting them through carefully constructed images, editing and narrative.
The result can be powerful without functioning like a judicial finding.
Backlash Moves Beyond Criticism
The response inside Israel has moved well beyond ordinary disagreement over a film. Culture Minister Miki Zohar has called for Abraham and Szor to lose their Israeli citizenship, accusing them of damaging the country abroad, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir separately condemned the pair and told them to leave the country.
Any attempt to remove citizenship would face substantial legal hurdles and judicial scrutiny, but the ministers’ language shows how politically charged the film has grown.
Abraham and Szor argue that criticising government and military conduct is compatible with being Israeli, and that examining wartime actions is precisely the role of independent journalism and filmmaking. Their critics see something different: Israeli creators using an international cultural platform to present damaging allegations while the country remains at war.
Venice rewarded the documentary as cinema; Israel is now debating what its success means politically, and the two arguments are not the same one. An award does not prove the film’s allegations, and disagreement with the film does not erase the right to investigate them, a distinction that gets harder to hold onto once war, technology and national loyalty share the same screening room.
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