Two of the directors behind the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land presented their new film, NAZA, at the Venice Film Festival, which ran from September 2nd to 12th. The film won the Special Jury Prize.
Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, NAZA was shot at night from the rooftops of Tel Aviv. Blending investigative journalism with a cinematic narrative, the film documents and provides a detailed account of “the mechanisms which led to the systematic and premeditated massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza” by the Israeli government.
According to the directors, the film’s title, NAZA, is a military acronym reportedly used by Israeli intelligence services to quantify how many civilian deaths will result from a planned airstrike.
“We made this film out of a sense of duty, to use our status as Israelis to examine the mechanisms underlying the massacre of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible,” the directors said, presenting their film. “Over the three years of filming, we found ourselves asking the same questions which our grandparents’ generation – and people throughout the 20th century – used to ask: How can one group of people allow the total dehumanisation of another? What do the inner workings of such a system look like?”
Produced by The Guardian and JW Films, the film’s rights have been acquired by MK2 Films.
Sources : BroadCast Pro, La Biennale, The Guardian
