A hard-hitting documentary examining Israel’s military operations in Gaza has defied intense domestic political backlash to claim the top spot at Italy’s box office, beating a high-profile re-release of a Hollywood blockbuster to debut at number one. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, *NAZA* outperformed Disney/Marvel’s extended re-release of *Avengers: Endgame Encore* in its opening two days, pulling in roughly €1.1 million ($1.2 million) on Monday and Tuesday, compared to just €356,000 ($404,000) for the Marvel film over the same period.
The documentary, which recently took home the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, centers on first-hand testimony from Israeli sources regarding the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. It probes the role of artificial intelligence-powered systems in Israel’s military targeting strategy, and examines allegations that military planners explicitly accounted for high expected civilian casualties when selecting targets. To protect their sources, the film draws on anonymous interviews with 24 current and former Israeli military and intelligence insiders, offering a rare unvarnished look at internal Israeli perspectives on the conduct of the war.
At its world premiere in Venice, *NAZA* made history by earning a 24-and-a-half-minute standing ovation from the audience—the longest in the festival’s recent history, according to industry outlet *Variety*. This reception broke the previous record set just one year prior by Kaouther Ben Hania’s *The Voice of Hind Rajab*, a documentary about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024, which received a 22-minute standing ovation.
Almost immediately after *NAZA* was awarded the Special Jury Prize on Saturday, the filmmakers faced a wave of fierce condemnation and legal threats from senior Israeli politicians and public figures. Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar labeled the film “despicable” and announced his intention to immediately move forward with revoking the Israeli citizenship of Abraham and Szor, alleging their work amounts to treason against the state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly echoed Zohar’s attacks, announcing that he would introduce two new pieces of legislation targeting individuals accused of “defaming” the Israeli military. The first bill would formally allow the government to revoke the citizenship of anyone found to have defamed Israeli soldiers, while the second would increase the maximum damages that can be awarded in defamation cases against such individuals by twenty times. “They have no place among us,” Netanyahu stated of people he accuses of smearing the Israeli military.
According to reports from Israeli media, the backlash has extended to the country’s top military leadership: Israeli military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has ordered the country’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, to pursue legal action against Abraham and Szor. Despite this intense domestic pressure, the documentary is set to roll out globally. It is scheduled for wide release in the United States starting after 9 October, and will also screen in 55 other countries across the globe, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, and multiple nations across the Middle East.