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'NAZA,' the new documentary from 'No Other Land' directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, earned a massive 24.5-minute ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere on Thursday, reported Variety.
This marks the longest-ever standing ovation in Venice, besting the 22 minutes for 'The Voice of Hind Rajab' last year. This could be the longest standing ovation from the festival as it concludes on Saturday. According to the outlet, the Oscar-winning 'Zone of Interest' director Jonathan Glazer, who is an executive producer on the film, embraced Abraham and Szor and cheered them on throughout the astounding applause. The directing duo looked somber, and both got teary-eyed at points, as did the audience, some of whom held up Palestinian flags. "NAZA shows in detail the systems behind Israels calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to its official synopsis. The documentary was shot in secrecy at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv and features revelatory interviews with 24 Israeli military intelligence officers and soldiers. 'NAZA,' a term that appears throughout the documentary, is an acronym for collateral damage used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. The documentary was a late addition to Venices competition, being added a month after the initial lineup was announced in July. The directors explained at a press conference earlier on Thursday that the last-minute nature was because they were finishing the movie, which they worked on for three years. Abraham and Szor were two of the four directors of 'No Other Land,' which won the 2025 Best Documentary Oscar and depicts the Israeli governments efforts to force Palestinians from their homes in the southern West Bank. In an interview with Variety ahead of the docs premiere, Abraham said: As Israelis, we found ourselves wanting to use the kind of position that we have the access that we have to people in our own society who went into the military, to look at that system as it carried out what all human rights organisations are saying is a genocide. According to the Variety, last year, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hanias Gaza-set 'The Voice of Hind Rajab,' about the death of a 6-year-old girl killed by Israeli military fire while attempting to flee Gaza City with her family, elicited a 22-minute standing ovation, which stands as the fests longest. Ben Hania is part of Venices Maggie Gyllenhaal-led jury that will be selecting the award winners on Saturday. (ANI)
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