NAZA just won a powerful U.S. film ally as it seeks to continue its box office momentum.
Neon is coming aboard to distribute Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s documentary about the Israeli military in Gaza, with the Oscar-decorated studio rolling out the movie to theaters from this point forward. The company will provide publicity support, theater booking, P&A funds and other resources as it does for all its acquisitions, according to sources.
The decision by one of the most well-regarded studios operating today to acquire rights to NAZA provides the whistleblowing doc with a strong artistic seal-of-approval. It also financially supercharged what has already been a robust independent release. NAZA has taken in nearly $900,000 in less than two weeks in North American theaters, adding to its total of more than $6.5 million overseas. Neon said in a statement that it “will work with the filmmakers to expand its footprint and to reach larger audiences and communities.”
The movie had not to date had a traditional distributor, with the producing entities — they include The Guardian and international-sales company MK2 — putting it into theaters themselves. Neon reps say they have been talking to the people behind the film (they also include director Jonathan Glazer and his producing partner James Wilson) about a potential deal since an enthusiastic New York Film Festival screening last month.
In the documentary, Abraham interviews some two dozen IDF soldiers involved in Israel’s war in Gaza, building off pieces he did for The Guardian and other publications. The filmmaker speaks to the soldiers anonymously and in shadow on Tel Aviv rooftops, with the whistleblowers documenting in specific and often chilling detail how they personally conducted the war that began in the fall of 2023 after Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel.
Abraham told The Hollywood Reporter that “That truth should have been evident from the very start…So many people — especially Israelis, and people in the United States and in Germany and other places — are still denying those crimes, and the denial of those crimes allows them to persist.”
The film has garnered very strong reviews; THR called it “brave and indispensable” for how it showcased soldiers describing how the Israeli army has prosecuted the war. The IDF has said the film is “distorted, misleading and disingenuous” as it criticized the film for politically-motivated cherrypicking.
The Neon move could also provide an assist to the filmmakers’ goal to stop U.S. aid to Israel. Abraham told the NYFF audience that “For us, [it’s] the main motivation…these crimes are ongoing not just because our country is doing it but because your country is supporting and funding it.”
NAZA‘s North American totals put it ahead of the pace of Abraham and Szor’s previous movie, the West Bank-centered No Other Land, which over several months grossed some $2.5 million and won the documentary Oscar without a theatrical distributor.
Neon, meanwhile, is poised to be at the center of this year’s Oscar race with another headline-oriented work in Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s withering drama about Sam Altman and OpenAI’s safety recklessness, after winning big two years ago with Anora and seven years ago with Parasite.
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