Directed by Israeli journalists and filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who previously co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary *No Other Land*, *Naza* examines the military mechanisms that led to the deaths of a large number of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Its title takes its name from the Hebrew acronym ‘nezek agavi’, a military term referring to ‘collateral damage’ – in other words, the number of civilian casualties anticipated during a strike.
Over the course of eighty minutes, the film draws in particular on the anonymised testimonies of twenty-four soldiers and members of the Israeli intelligence services. They describe a war that has become a matter of data, calculations, surveillance and targets designated by algorithmic systems. Human beings thus disappear behind figures, probabilities and acceptable loss margins.
The film’s style seems deliberately detached. Much of the testimony was filmed at night, on the rooftops of Tel Aviv. This visual distance apparently prevents an accumulation of unbearable images and allows those who know the system from the inside to speak first. The images of Gaza only truly emerge in the final section, when words, statistics and procedures are abruptly re-associated with bodies and faces.
‘Naza’ is therefore not merely a film about a war. It is a documentary about the bureaucratisation of death. It poses a terrifying question: what becomes of human responsibility when a deadly decision is fragmented between a computer programme, an intelligence service, a chain of command and the person who ultimately presses the button?
Screened at the Venice Film Festival, the film received a twenty-five-minute standing ovation before being awarded the Special Jury Prize. But it was above all the reaction of the Israeli authorities that gave it global resonance. Benjamin Netanyahu described it as a scandalous incitement, whilst the Israeli Minister of Culture, Miki Zohar, went so far as to demand that the filmmakers be stripped of their citizenship. The Israeli army disputes the documentary’s allegations and claims that it presents a distorted view of its operations. Reuters??
This political backlash against a film that the majority of its critics had not yet even seen is in itself a reason to take an interest in it. A documentary is, of course, neither a court of law nor a truth handed down from on high. Anonymous testimonies must be scrutinised, the narrative structure questioned and the editing choices debated. *Naza* should not be accepted on faith. It must be viewed as an investigation presenting facts, testimonies and an interpretation that everyone remains free to challenge.
But calling for a film to be banned or punishing its makers before the public has even had a chance to judge their work seems less like a refutation and more like an admission of panic. A democracy does not protect itself by stripping those who question its actions of their nationality. It protects itself by responding to them.
So, should you go and see *Naza*? Yes. Not necessarily to come away convinced by every assertion, but to understand the insights it brings to the debate. We cannot demand the truth whilst rejecting works that challenge our own worldview.
*Naza* is unlikely to be either a comfortable film or an enjoyable evening at the cinema. It is likely to provoke anger, pain, doubt and perhaps rejection. That is precisely why we must see it. Going to see *Naza* is not about blindly choosing a side. It is refusing to let war spare us from seeing what it does to human beings.
To date, no French release has yet been announced, although MK2 Films is handling international sales of the documentary. Venice Film Festival? — MK2 Films?.
