Neon, the award-winning studio behind some of the most daring and celebrated films of the last decade, has joined the Guardian, MK2, James Wilson and Jonathan Glazer on NAZA from Academy Award-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the co-directors of No Other Land, which won an Oscar for best documentary feature in 2025. The urgent documentary received its world premiere in competition at the Venice international film festival, where it won the special jury prize and received a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation. The film later screened at the San Sebastián international film festival (winning the audience award) and the New York film festival. This week, it won the critics prize at the Hot Springs documentary film festival. The film is nominated for three Critics Choice documentary awards including best documentary, best director and best political documentary. It is also included on Doc NYC’s Short List.
Neon stated: “Yuval and Rachel have created one of the best films of the year; it’s an extraordinary work of art and eyewitness testimony that stands alongside landmark documentaries like Laura Poitras’ Citizenfour and Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing. At the heart of Neon’s mission is a commitment to championing the best cinema from around the world. We’re proud to join the incredible team already working on the film and help bring it to the widest audience possible.“
The Guardian’s head of investigations, Paul Lewis, and global head of multimedia, Nicole Jackson, said:
“We’re delighted that Neon is joining the NAZA team – a global network of distributors, producers, journalists and film-makers intent on bringing this remarkable documentary to as many audiences as possible. The film is currently in cinemas in more than 50 countries around the world and, with Neon’s backing, we are confident we can further expand our audience in the US.
“Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are exceptionally talented directors. Their partnership with the Guardian has resulted in an urgent film that is informing and moving audiences all over the world. We believe with Neon’s support that impact will only grow.”
NAZA was released independently in the US on 30 September in 85 theaters across 30 cities. Overseas, the film has secured theatrical distribution in more than 50 countries. Neon will work with the film-makers to expand its footprint and to reach larger audiences and communities. In NAZA, which was the only documentary in the Venice competition, secret conversations on the rooftops of Tel Aviv at night reveal the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza by the people who designed and operated them.
The documentary is produced by the Guardian with producer James Wilson’s JW Films in association with Placeholder Films and Unseen Hand. Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest, Under the Skin) executive-produced. The deal was negotiated by MK2 Films, which led sales for the film before the Venice film festival, and Neon.
Abraham is an Israeli film-maker and investigative journalist and Szor is an Israeli film-maker and cinematographer. They are two of the four co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.