NAZA Trailer Drops Ahead of 56-Territory Release and Free Guardian Stream

The first trailer for NAZA, the Venice Special Jury Prize–winning Gaza documentary from Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, landed Friday as the film prepares a global theatrical rollout in 56 territories and a later free stream on The Guardian’s website, Deadline and Variety reported.

Abraham and Szor — two of the four co-directors of the 2025 Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land — shot much of the film at night on Tel Aviv rooftops, gathering testimony from intelligence personnel and soldiers about how missile strikes in Gaza were planned and carried out. The investigative feature builds on reporting first published between 2023 and 2025 by The Guardian with partners +972 Magazine and Local Call, Variety said.

Theatrical dates are now locked. Distributors working with French sales company MK2 plan openings from September 28 onward across more than 50 territories, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, Japan and Brazil. The North American premiere is set for September 26 at the New York Film Festival, with a U.S. theatrical start September 30 exclusively at New York’s IFC Center before expanding to Los Angeles and other markets on October 9, Deadline reported.

What makes the distribution plan unusual is the U.S. strategy: rather than selling the film to a traditional studio or independent distributor, The Guardian and MK2 are coordinating the American rollout with a team of partners and consultants aimed at getting the film into theaters quickly. After the theatrical window, The Guardian — which also produced the film with James Wilson’s JW Films — plans to make NAZA available free on its website in late November, both outlets said. Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Glazer is an executive producer.

The Venice premiere on September 10 brought a reported 25-minute standing ovation — a festival record in some accounts — and the Special Jury Prize. The same reception has fueled a political storm inside Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly attacked the film and threatened to strip Abraham and Szor of Israeli citizenship, even though he lacks that power under Israeli law, Deadline noted. The controversy has kept the documentary in the news cycle well beyond the festival circuit.

In a joint statement tied to the global distribution announcement, Abraham and Szor said they made the film out of an obligation to examine, as Israeli filmmakers and journalists, “the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians for which our country is responsible.” They described asking questions their grandparents’ generation also faced about how one group of people allows the total dehumanization of another, and said the film explores silences that print reporting alone could not capture, according to Variety.

For readers following culture and world wire coverage on Daily News, the trailer drop frames a rare hybrid of investigative journalism and theatrical documentary: a newspaper-backed feature heading into commercial cinemas before returning to free digital access. That path is meant to maximize both festival prestige and mass reach, with the free Guardian stream positioned as a late-November capstone after weeks of international theatrical play.

Whether audiences treat NAZA as cinema, reporting, or both, the calendar is now public. New York Film Festival on September 26, U.S. theaters from September 30, a 56-territory expansion through October, and free global streaming via The Guardian after the theatrical run. The trailer is the first extended look at a film already reshaping debates about how wartime accountability stories travel from newsrooms to screens.