‘NAZA’ premiere draws cheers inside and protest outside New York Film Festival

The North American premiere of NAZA on Saturday brought sharply different responses to Lincoln Center. Inside the New York Film Festival screening, co-director Yuval Abraham urged the audience to confront what the documentary alleges about Israel’s war in Gaza. Outside, protesters screened footage of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and challenged the film’s account.

“This is what your country is supporting and funding,” Abraham told the audience, referring to US taxpayer money. His remarks drew cheers. “Part of the goal is to make denial of what’s going on in Gaza harder.”

The documentary, directed by Abraham and Rachel Szor, examines Israeli military targeting and expected civilian deaths in airstrikes. Its title refers to an Israeli intelligence acronym for anticipated civilian casualties, according to Film at Lincoln Center. The festival presented Saturday’s screening as the film’s North American premiere, following its Special Jury Prize win at Venice.

Outside the screening, Rom El-Hai, a survivor of the attack on the Nova music festival, called the filmmakers “traitors” to Israel. “If there is someone here who wants to make a film about genocide, about hatred, brutality and killing innocent people, all the material is here on my phone,” he told protesters. “I took pictures of everything. I saw the hatred with my own eyes.”

The Israeli-American Council had announced plans to show Oct. 7 footage on mobile screens at the protest. Its announcement named El-Hai among the survivors expected to attend.

Abraham and Szor, who also co-directed the Oscar-winning No Other Land, say they made the film to examine the systems behind Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza.