Less than a month after its world premiere, followed by the record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation and the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival, the hotly debated documentary film "NAZA" will be shown for the first time in Bulgaria as part of "Sofia Documental", Sega reports.
On October 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the House of Cinema, the Bulgarian premiere of the film will take place as an extraordinary highlight in the program of this year's seventh edition of the documentary film festival with a focus on human rights.
Filmed in extreme secrecy for three years on the rooftops of Tel Aviv at night, "NAZA" presents the testimonies of 24 Israeli military sources, including intelligence officers and soldiers. They reveal details about the war in Gaza and what they define as the systematic killing of Palestinian civilians. The film claims that Israel uses artificial intelligence to identify and bomb potential targets of the extremist group "Hamas" in Gaza - often with the full knowledge that many civilians would likely die in such a strike. The Israeli army admits that it uses AI to identify targets, but assures that the final decision before striking is made by a human, the publication also writes.
Positive reactions from Venice unleashed a stormy wave of negativity among leading Israeli politicians and military officials, many of whom defined "NAZA" as an anti-Israel project that lacks objectivity. All of them admitted that they had not seen the film. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the filmmakers of incitement and anti-Semitism, while the head of the Israeli army vowed to hunt down the servicemen who collaborated on the project. Culture Minister Mickey Zohar called for the citizenship of Abraham and Shor to be revoked. The Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli army, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, asked the military prosecutor's office to investigate a potential leak of classified information in the film. "This is a dangerous attempt to take away our legitimate right to defend ourselves against our most vicious enemies", Zamir pointed out.
The directors themselves share: "We made this film, driven by a sense of duty to use our position as Israelis to examine the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, for which our country is responsible. Over the past three years of filming, we have been confronted with the same questions that our grandparents' generation asked themselves and which remain relevant throughout the 20th century: how does one group of people allow the complete dehumanization of another? What does such a system look like from the inside?"
"NAZA" is a co-production of the "Guardian" newspaper and Jonathan Glazer - creator of the "Oscar" in 2023 "Area of Interest", and is the second documentary project by Abraham and Shore. The project is a sequel to their documentary "No Other Land" (No Other Land), awarded with an "Oscar" in 2025. It was also shown for the first time in Bulgaria at "Sofia Documental", but in 2024.
The screening on October 5 is realized in partnership with the distribution company Pro8 Film Distribution and subsequent ones will be announced in other cities in the country. Tickets are sold at the box office of the House of Cinema, as well as online, and are almost sold out in hours.