VENICE: A gut-wrenching film premiering at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year gives a "voice" to Palestinian victims of the war, its director said.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" shook audiences in its first press screenings in Venice on Wednesday, leaving some critics in tears over the dramatic portrayal of real events from January 2024.
"We see that the narrative all around world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media", Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania told reporters.
"And 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". Her film, a strong contender for Venice's top prize, has support from Brad Pitt and Joachin Phoenix as well as Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer ("The Zone of Interest") and Mexico's Alfonso Cuaron ("Roma"). All of them are credited as executive producers.
"I'm very happy and I never in my life thought that can be possible", Ben Hania said of her A-list Hollywood backers, whom she said had joined her after the film's editing was completed.
True Story Dramatised
Hind Rajab Hamada was fleeing an Israeli offensive in Gaza City with six relatives in January 2024 when their car came under fire.
Left as the sole survivor in the badly damaged vehicle, her desperate pleas for help by phone — recorded by the Red Crescent rescue service and later released — caused brief international outrage.
She was later found dead along with two Red Crescent workers who had gone to rescue her.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" reproduces the real phone recordings in the film but tells the story through the eyes and ears of a dramatised Red Crescent team which is trying to coordinate her rescue.
"It is dramatisation but very close to what they experienced", Ben Hania added.
"Please come to me, please come. I'm scared", Hind Rajab can be heard sobbing repeatedly in the film while bullets fly in the background.
Hind Rajab is described as six years old in the film, but a death certificate viewed by AFP in Gaza shows her age as five.
'Stop The War'
The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point at the 2025 Venice Film Festival. Thousands of protesters marched to the entrance to the event on Saturday, shouting: "Stop the genocide!" An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government has gone unheeded, but has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.
Hind Rajab's mother, Wissam Hamada, said she hoped the film 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", Hamada said by phone from famine-hit Gaza City where she lives with her five-year-old son.
"It's a huge betrayal". The conflict has cost the lives of at least 63,633 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza the United Nations deems reliable.
Tunisia has already announced it will be entering "The Voice of Hind Rajab" in the foreign film category of the Oscars. — AFP
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