The Guardian and mk2 Films last week announced that NAZA, the new Guardian- produced documentary awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, will be released theatrically from 28 September onwards in more than 50 territories.
NAZA will be available in cinemas across the world, having secured theatrical distributors in 56 territories since its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 10 September.
Following worldwide interest in the film, soon after NAZA’s global theatrical run the Guardian will make NAZA available for global audiences, for free, via theguardian.com in late November as part of its commitment to fearless, independent journalism, says the publisher.
As previously announced, NAZA received its North American premiere on 26 September at New York Film Festival, and will open in US theaters on September 30, launching exclusively at the IFC Center in New York City. It will expand to Los Angeles and other key markets on October 9th, ahead of a national roll out in the weeks to follow, the publisher continued.
In addition to the US distribution plan outlined above, NAZA has secured theatrical distributors in the following territories: France, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, Central America, and the Middle East.
The film has been offered to a number of distributors and cinemas in Israel. The Guardian says it will also be exploring other ways to enable the film to be seen in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, the film reveals in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. NAZA is a military acronym euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians that it expects will be killed in an airstrike.
NAZA is directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the two Israeli directors of the four co-directors of 2024 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land; produced by The Guardian and James Wilson (JW Films); and executive produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Glazer.
NAZA builds on a series of revelations first published by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, a Israeli-Palestinian publication, and Hebrew-language outlet, Local Call between 2023-2025, including groundbreaking investigations into: Israel’s AI-driven targeting practices in Gaza; a major 2024 project examining Israel’s efforts to undermine war crimes investigations; and a 2025 investigation revealing a surveillance system that captures millions of Palestinian phone calls each day. This award-winning reporting has since been cited and followed up by several other major global news organisations.
Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor said: “We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israelis to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible. The threats from the Israeli government to revoke our citizenship and the death threats do not change that and will not stop the film. We thank our colleagues for the solidarity and look forward to sharing NAZA all over the world very soon.”
Harry Davies, a Guardian investigations correspondent and one of NAZA’s producers, said: “NAZA is grounded in rigorous journalism published over the past three years, but it is also a powerful piece of cinema that will soon be available on screens, large and small, around the world.
“The initial response from those who’ve seen it shows audiences are engaging deeply with the urgent questions the film raises. We’re working with MK2 and international partners to bring the film to global audiences as soon as possible.”
Watch the official trailer for the film here.
Keep up-to-date with publishing news: sign up here for InPubWeekly, our free weekly e-newsletter.
