'NAZA' Co-Director Yuval Abraham Tells NYFF: 'This Is What Your Country Is Supporting'

The Gaza documentary "NAZA" made its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival, where co-director Yuval Abraham directly addressed the U.S. government's role in funding Israel's military campaign to an audience still drying its eyes after the screening.

Abraham, who directs the film with Rachel Szor, told the crowd at a post-screening Q&A with festival director Dennis Lim that screening the film at NYFF mattered because American taxpayers were financing what the documentary depicts.

"It's important for us to see this film at this moment, as you were saying, because these older officials are talking about what is being done with taxpayer money from people sitting here," Abraham said, drawing cheers from the audience. "This is what your country is supporting and funding… Part of the goal is to make denial of what's going on in Gaza harder."

Abraham, a journalist as well as a filmmaker, argued that the United States supplies billions in funding and military aid to the Israeli government, aid he said is being used against the Palestinian people.

The screening ended with a massive standing ovation for Abraham and Szor. Many in the audience had just watched footage of the destruction of Gaza captured by the filmmakers.

"NAZA" premiered earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, where it won a special jury prize and received a record-breaking 24.5-minute standing ovation. The documentary was shot at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv and shows, according to its description, "in detail the systems behind Israel's calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza."

The film is set to release in more than 50 territories before becoming available to stream for free on The Guardian's website.

The reception in New York stood in sharp contrast to the reaction from Israeli officials since the Venice debut. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a law that would "revoke the citizenship of anyone who slanders IDF soldiers" following the film's premiere. Israel's Minister of Culture threatened to revoke the filmmakers' Israeli citizenship.

Outside the festival screening, the Israeli-American Council organized a protest of more than 50 people against the film. The organization described "NAZA" as "anti-Israel" and said it "makes serious allegations about the IDF's conduct in the Gaza Strip while ignoring findings and information that contradict its claims." Protesters gathered by LED trucks projecting footage from October 7 and portraits of those killed that day.

During the Q&A, Abraham addressed the October 7 attack directly. "It's completely unjustified, the massacre of October 7th," he said. "But it also cannot justify what you've seen. Does it justify the slaughter of so many civilians in Gaza?"

With distribution across more than 50 territories and a free streaming release on The Guardian's site ahead, the filmmakers' stated goal of making denial harder will be tested on a far wider audience than the festival crowds in Venice and New York.