Venice Embraced a Gaza Documentary. Its Directors Now Face Threats.

The Guardian reports that the documentary NAZA, which won cinematic acclaim at the Venice film festival, has drawn extreme responses on two fronts. In the Sala Grande, the main screening hall of the Palazzo del Cinema, the audience first fell into stunned silence, then stood almost as one and turned toward the filmmakers. In Israel, the same film's directors have faced vitriol and death threats, a reaction the paper links to a febrile election campaign.

The account is the Guardian's, published on 19 September, and it describes a festival response that ran to both extremes: ovation inside the Palazzo del Cinema, menace outside it. The paper does not report the specific content of the threats, nor does it name those responsible. What it establishes is the contrast itself — acclaim in Venice, hostility in Israel — and the timing of the second, set against an election campaign the Guardian describes as febrile.

Venice has long been the festival where work about the Middle East draws its sharpest reactions, and this edition has now produced two such cases. The Guardian reported separately that the Iranian actor Laleh Marzban, who won a best newcomer award for her portrayal of a woman held hostage by her father in Falling House, has come under severe attack after dedicating her prize to "the women of Iran." The paper said she has received condemnations from authorities.

Taken together, the two episodes describe something the festival circuit has become used to and has not resolved. A prize awarded in the Sala Grande travels quickly, and the response it generates is no longer confined to the review pages. The Guardian frames both stories in the same terms: a moment of recognition in Venice, followed by consequences in the country the film describes. In Marzban's case the paper reports condemnations from authorities; in the case of NAZA, it reports death threats against the directors.

The Italian side of this is institutional rather than political. The Venice film festival is staged by the Biennale, the same body that runs the art, architecture, dance, theatre and music sections across the year, and its screenings at the Palazzo del Cinema are the country's most visible annual interface with foreign cinema. That position is precisely why a controversy that begins elsewhere is read here as a test of what a festival can host. The Guardian's reporting does not suggest the Biennale has commented on either case, and no Italian reaction is attributed in the coverage.

For the cultural economy that surrounds the festival — the sales agents, the translation and subtitling houses, the publishers who acquire tie-in editions — the practical effect is a familiar one. A film that arrives in Venice without distribution can leave with it, and the argument that follows is part of the package rather than a disruption of it. The Guardian's account of NAZA notes the ovation before it notes the threats, which is roughly the order in which the industry processes these things.

What remains unclear from the wire is what happens next for either film. The Guardian reports the Israeli reaction as ongoing and tied to an election campaign, which makes it time-limited by definition. Marzban's situation is less bounded: the paper describes severe attacks following a speech, without indicating whether any official step has been taken beyond condemnation. Both stories will be followed from outside Italy, and both will be read in Italy as evidence of what the festival's stage now carries with it.