Naza, a documentary examining the Israeli military’s killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, received a 24.5-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere on September 10. Organizers and the AFP news agency described it as the longest ovation in the festival’s history.
The film is directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the Israeli filmmakers behind “No Other Land,” which won the 2025 Academy Award for best documentary feature. Naza is the only documentary competing for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion.
Audience members waved Palestinian flags as the applause continued, according to reports from the screening. Jonathan Glazer, the Oscar-winning director of “The Zone of Interest” and an executive producer on the project, was among those in attendance.
What the documentary shows
Naza is built on testimony from 24 Israeli soldiers and military intelligence officers who describe the systems behind civilian deaths in Gaza. Rather than examining isolated incidents, the film focuses on what Abraham has called the orders, policies and patterns behind the killings.
The title refers to a Hebrew military acronym roughly translating to “collateral damage.” The directors say the term “obscures both the military’s advance knowledge of likely civilian deaths and the nature of the campaign itself.”
“We are letting the soldiers and the officers speak about what they did,” Abraham said, according to The New Arab. “The goal was very simple: we wanted to hear in as much detail as possible how the systems of killing in Gaza looked like, how they operated.”
Anonymized soldiers quoted in the film describe operations conducted “on a mass scale, like a factory” and remote strikes that felt “like a video game because everything is done remotely.” One described a broader climate of “hatred” toward Palestinians within military ranks.
A director who has been here before
This is not the first time Abraham’s work has generated this kind of reaction. “No Other Land,” which he co-directed with Szor and Palestinian co-directors Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, won the Oscar earlier this year despite struggling to secure US distribution, a fact that drew its own criticism from press freedom groups.
Naza appears set for a similarly difficult but high-profile path. It was produced with backing from The Guardian and JW Films, giving it institutional weight beyond a typical festival documentary.
Critics at the premiere were blunt about its impact. Screen described it as an “urgent, gut-punch,” while The Hollywood Reporter said it inspired “outrage” and “disgust, on a profound level, for the current Israeli regime.”
Why it matters beyond the festival
Venice ovations are often treated as festival trivia, but this one lands amid continued scrutiny of how the Gaza war’s civilian toll was carried out and documented. Israeli authorities have separately opened criminal investigations this year into specific incidents, including the killing of paramedic Hind Rajab, a case Wire Examiner has previously reported on.
For Pakistani audiences, the film adds to a body of Israeli and international reporting that has shaped public opinion on the war, even though Pakistan has no diplomatic relations with Israel and Naza is unlikely to see a commercial release here. Pakistan’s government has repeatedly called for accountability over civilian deaths in Gaza and has backed international legal action against Israeli conduct in the conflict.
The film’s reliance on Israeli soldiers’ own accounts, rather than outside investigators or Palestinian testimony alone, is likely to shape how it is received internationally. Supporters argue that whistleblower testimony from within the military carries a weight that outside reporting cannot match. Critics of the war’s coverage in Israel have said such films are important precisely because they complicate a narrative many in the country still resist.
No international distribution deal for Naza had been announced as of the Venice premiere. Given the reception “No Other Land” received on the festival circuit before its Oscar win, however, distributors are likely to move quickly.
The Venice Film Festival’s main awards, including the Golden Lion, are set to be announced later this month.
