Gaza Documentary ‘NAZA’ Sets U.S. Theatrical Release Through Self-Distribution Model

“NAZA,” the acclaimed and controversial documentary about killings in Gaza, has set a distribution rollout for U.S. theaters starting Sept. 30 via an innovative plan that forgoes selling the film to a studio or independent distributor.

The rollout, which kicks off exclusively at the IFC Center in New York City, is “spearheaded by The Guardian and mk2, who have assembled a team of U.S. and international partners and consultants to bring the film to audiences as quickly as possible,” according to a release.

The documentary will expand to Los Angeles and other markets on Oct. 9 and then roll out nationally.

It’s looking like a busy fall for theatrical releases of documentaries: Buzzy non-fictions titles set for October openings include Alex Gibney’s “Musk” on Oct. 9 and Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s Elizabeth Holmes doc “You Can See Everything” on Oct. 16.

Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the two Israeli directors of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” “NAZA” won a special jury prize at the recent Venice Film Festival. Its North American premiere is at The New York Film Festival on Sept. 26. “No Other Land” was released in the U.S. through Cinetic with bookings by Michael Tuckman Media rather than using a traditional distributor.

Shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, “NAZA” reveals in detail the systems behind “Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” according to the synopsis. NAZA is the military acronym used by Israeli intelligence to describe the number of civilians that it expects will be killed in an airstrike.

Directors Abraham and Szor said in a statement, “We made this film out of a sense of obligation to use our position as Israeli filmmakers and journalists to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible. While filming members of Israel’s military on rooftops at night in Tel Aviv over the past three years, we found ourselves asking the very questions that were asked by our grandparents’ generation and throughout the 20th century: how does one group of people allow the total dehumanisation of another? What do the inner workings of such a system look like? Many of the revelations in the film were published almost immediately as we learned of them, in the months following the October 7th attacks, by The Guardian (one of NAZA’s producers), in collaboration with reporting partners +972 Magazine and Local Call. The film lets us explore something deeper than we could in our investigative journalism alone: not only the words being said but also those that are not said, the silence. It is up to all of us to break that silence.”

“NAZA” is produced by The Guardian and James Wilson (JW Films) and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer.