NAZA takes 20 days from Venice to cinemas. No Other Land took 350

Twenty days separated the world premiere of NAZA on the Lido from its first paying audience in New York. Yuval Abraham's last film needed 350.

Those two numbers are the whole story of what has changed for one team of documentary makers, and they are worth setting out with the dates attached. No Other Land, which Abraham co-directed with Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, premiered at the Berlin film festival on 16 February 2024. It reached an American cinema on 31 January 2025, at Film Forum in New York, in a booking the filmmakers arranged themselves because no United States distributor would take it. Thirty days later it won the Academy Award for best documentary feature.

NAZA, directed by Abraham and Szor, premiered in Venice on 10 September and left with the Special Jury Prize. It played the New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall on Friday night. It opens at IFC Center on Wednesday, expands to Los Angeles and other markets on 9 October, and then goes online, free, on the Guardian's website in late November.

Nobody bought it. That was the plan.

The market said no twice, so they stopped asking

Abraham and his co-directors told Variety in early 2025 that American distributors would not touch No Other Land because the film was "completely political". The Academy Award did not change their minds. The film sold into 24 countries, through the Austrian sales company Autlook internationally and Cinetic Media in North America, and the American release stayed a self-booked operation run through mTuckman Media.

It worked, after a fashion. No Other Land opened to $26,100 and finished with $2,549,422 in the United States, per Box Office Mojo, which to this day lists its distributor as "Independent". That is a final domestic gross of 98 times its opening weekend. A studio picture that multiplies its opening by three is said to have legs. Prism Reports noted in March 2025 that the film was out-grossing the other four documentary nominees while American audiences still had no way to stream it.

The refusals ran in both directions. In October 2025, eight months after the Film Forum booking, Deadline reported that the team turned down a United States streaming deal with Mubi over Mubi's funding from Sequoia Capital, and put the film out on demand themselves instead.

Seen against that, the NAZA rollout is not a surprise. It is the third run at the same decision, made a great deal faster.

Fifty-six territories in eighteen days

The Guardian produced NAZA, and mk2 Films is placing it internationally. Screen Daily reported that theatrical distributors were in place across 56 territories before the film had opened anywhere, with releases starting on 28 September in France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. TheWrap put it at 55 territories beyond the United States, which is the same count arrived at from the other end.

Set that beside No Other Land's 24 countries, assembled across the year between Berlin and the Oscar. NAZA has more than twice the theatrical footprint, booked inside three weeks, for a film with no distributor in the country whose money it is largely about.

There is a reading of all this in which the Academy Award finally gave Abraham a stronger hand. The evidence points the other way. The award bought him no American distributor, no streaming deal he was willing to sign, and no quicker route to a screen. What it bought was the standing to skip the part where you wait.

Eight weeks, then nothing to pay

The free release is the part the trade will argue about. NAZA's American theatrical window runs roughly eight weeks, from 30 September to late November, after which anyone with a browser can watch it for nothing. No Other Land went eight months from Film Forum to paid video on demand and is still selling rentals. A documentary that plays for eight weeks and then goes free is not built to recoup.

The partners said the decision reflects the "worldwide interest" in the film and the Guardian's "commitment to fearless, independent journalism", according to Deadline. Screen Daily reported that the film has been offered to Israeli distributors and cinemas, and that mk2 is working out how to make it watchable in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The row that travels with it

The film is built on testimony from 24 anonymous Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel, and Jonathan Glazer is among its producers.

The Israeli military has rejected its central allegations. The Times of Israel reported that the IDF said it had never planned, approved or carried out a strike in Gaza expected to kill anything near 500 civilians, and that the film rests on unverified anonymous accounts. The chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, called it a "blood libel" and asked the Military Advocate General to consider legal action. Abraham has disputed the "unverified" description, saying the Guardian's editors had access to the underlying material. The Guardian has said it will defend the film and its team against attempts at censorship.

More than 50 protesters gathered outside Alice Tully Hall on Friday, with mobile LED screens projecting footage from 7 October and portraits of those killed that day, Variety reported. The Times of Israel and Haaretz covered the same demonstration. Inside, Abraham told the audience that the events in the film are "being done with taxpayer money from people sitting here", per TheWrap.

Where it finished in Venice

The Special Jury Prize is the third prize on the Venice list. The Golden Lion went to May el-Toukhy's Woman Unknown, one of only two competition films with a woman directing, and Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love took the Grand Jury Prize. We wrote on the morning of the ceremony that ovations are a poor guide to juries, and the 24.5-minute standing ovation NAZA drew on 10 September, the longest recorded at the festival, did not deliver the Lion.

It did something more useful for a film with no buyer. It made 56 distributors move in under three weeks.

IFC Center starts selling tickets on Wednesday. From late November, nobody will need one.