A film based on the shocking killing of a five-year-old girl in Gaza has left many ‘sobbing’ during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Overnight, the drama The Voice of Hind Rajab had its world premiere at Venice, where it’s also been nominated for the Golden Lion.
The film, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, recounts the story behind the murder of Hind Rajab, a young Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli forces last year while her family were attempting to flee Gaza City.
The film’s synopsis explains: ‘In late January 2024, workers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society receive an emergency call from a young girl in Gaza.
‘As the tragic events of the day unfold, they race to save her, all the while following the strictures of a complex protocol.’
Using actual audio phone conversations, the entire film takes place in the dispatch call centre as first responders desperately try to save the young girl.
Following its screening last night, it’s been reported that the film left much of the audience and many journalists ‘sobbing’.
It also received a record-breaking 23-minute, 50-second standing ovation, with the audience also breaking into chants of ‘Free Palestine’.
After the lights went up one of the stars of the film, Motaz Malhees, took a Palestinian flag and held it up in the cinema, while the cast also held up a photo of Rajab as the ovation played out.
Earlier in the day, at a press conference for the film, actress Saja Kilani gave an impassioned speech in which she called for an end of the ‘ongoing occupation’ in Gaza.
‘Enough of the mass killing, the starvation, the dehumanisation, the destruction, and the ongoing occupation,’ she said.
‘This film is not an opinion or a fantasy. It is anchored in truth. Hind’s story carries the weight of an entire people. Her voice is one amongst 10s of 1000s of children that were killed in Gaza in the last two years alone.
‘It is the voice of every daughter and every son with the right to live, to dream, to exist in dignity. Yet all of it was stolen in front of our unblinking eyes.’
She added that Rajab’s story was about a ‘child crying out’. ‘No one can live in peace while even one child is forced to plead for survival. Let Hind Rajab’s voice echo around the world,’ she added.
Reviews for The Voice of Hind Rajab, which has been labelled an ‘urgent and compassionate portrait of an avoidable tragedy’, have declared it ‘the most vital film of the decade’.
‘I hope many people see this movie,’ The Hollywood Reporter declared.
‘If The Voice of Hind Rajab opens one hitherto blinkered eye, or ear, to the atrocities in Gaza, it will have done its job. But it’s a blunt and discomfiting instrument,’ Variety wrote.
‘This recreation is on another level. While it can be hard to get people to care about conflicts far removed from their own lives, this simply cannot be ignored. It will break you,’ The National added.
What happened to Hind Rajab?
The Voice of Hind Rajab focuses on recordings from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, who tried to rescue the young girl on January 29, 2024, after she was trapped with her cousin in a car where her uncle, aunt and three other cousins had been killed by Israeli fire.
In recordings, she can be heard begging for help as bullets were fired in the background. ‘Please come to me, please come. I’m scared,’ she said.
After being held back for three hours by the Israeli military, the rescuers were permitted to send an ambulance to the car where Rajab was stuck. At this point her cousin had also been killed after machine gun fire was directed at the car.
Not long after help finally arrived for the five-year-old, contact was cut.
A few days later Rajab’s body, along with that of her relatives and the two ambulance workers – Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun – were found.
Ben Hania has said that her film challenges the idea that those dying in Gaza were ‘collateral damage’.
‘I think this is so dehumanising, and that’s why cinema, art and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and face,’ she said.
Meanwhile Rajab’s mother, Wissam Hamada, said she hoped her daughter’s story being shared would help end the war.
‘The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything,’ she told AFP over the phone from Gaza City, where she still lives with her five-year-old son.
Last week, a string of Hollywood stars also came on board as executive producers for the film, including Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuarón and Jonathan Glazer.
The Voice of Hind Rajab has also been selected as Tunisia’s submission for Best International Feature Oscar.
A United Nations report released in July last year found that Rajab’s car was shot at from ‘very close range using a type of weapon that can only be attributed to the Israeli forces’.
The Israeli military has previously claimed its troops were not within firing range of the vehicle, however this week said the incident was still under review.
More than 18,000 children have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023.
The Voice of Hind Rajab will also be screening at the BFI London Film Festival next month.
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