Dozens of Israeli Americans and Jewish community members protested NAZA's New York Film Festival premiere outside Lincoln Center on Saturday, screening Oct. 7 attack footage on truck-mounted LED screens; Nova survivors Rom El-Hai and Shalev Biton also spoke.
IAC co-chair Tal Shuster said protesters were not seeking to stop the film, but wanted audiences to hear other perspectives. The council launched a petition urging U.S. cultural institutions, film festivals and theaters to accompany NAZA screenings with panels, survivor testimony and background materials.
Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, the documentary examines, in the filmmakers’ words, systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli military operations in Gaza. They said threats to revoke their citizenship and death threats would not stop the film. It won the Venice Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize earlier this month and is set for U.S. theatrical release Oct. 9, followed by a global rollout.
