A sword sticks in the spectator’s heart every time the repeated, foolish, afraid, Hind Rajab, 5 years old, Palestinian residing in the Gaza Striscia. It is the implorer that the little girl entrusts the rescuer of the red crescent that from the operations center tries to maintain contact with her.
The girl is closed in a standstill in a Gaza service station, hidden under the seats,
Around the shots. The car is riddled by the 365 submachine gunshots who killed the 5 relatives who traveled with her, the only survivor. Everything is immobile: Hind, family members, car, tanks around, the rescue action.
Sending an ambulance to save her (8 minutes would be enough to reach the girl) without being authorized by the army (Israeli, but never named) would be equivalent to a suicidal action, however necessary. But this caution will still prove useless and tragic, when the plan can be implemented, as evidenced by the images (real, non -fiction) inserted at the end of the work.
And for almost all the time of the film that sword: «Come and get me. It’s almost dark, I’m afraid ».
Hind’s voice, real presence in an audio track, visible but no face; In the mind, heart and bowels of the spectator nailed in front of the screen, dramatically takes on the traits and body of his daughter, of his granddaughter, generates the identification in “I” who was as a child as now.
In those few hours of audio contact we hear Hind growing from childhood naivety (“around me in the car I see the uncles and cousins who sleep”) will quickly pass to say that “I told you that they died, they killed them, they are not sleeping” a sign of a lost innocence because of the evil seen and immediately.
Hind’s voice that accompanies all the vision is not only personal appeal of salvation, but provocation for those adults and for all of us to do something for the Palestinian civilians and for those who suffer and die in the wars.
Presented at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2025, the work was accepted by 24 minutes of applause, record at Lido. Critics, actors, directors, spectators, journalists: everyone speaks with the same emotion as this work of Kaouther Ben Hania, already present in Venice at the exhibition in 2020, with “The man who sold his skin”, in Cinquina Oscar and awarded in Cannes in 2024 as the best documentary with “four daughters”.
The story is known regardless of the film, those audio have long been available on the net but for the director to make this film it has been a duty: «The journalistic news often pass in front of us and then we forget about it. I wanted it to remain memory of Hind Rajab, that feelings were felt for this child and that all anger and helplessness emerged. It was important that the Palestinian and Gaza voice emerged through Hind Rajab’s voice. I want to give justice to these people, hoping that sooner or later true justice will come ».
To support and produce the film many protagonists of Hollywood: Jonathan Glazer, Rooney Mara, Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix.
The Tunisian director shouts in the world the tragic history of Hind. The facts are real, which occurred on January 29, 2024, as is real the voice of the girl, perpetually sculpted in the audio recorded by the red crescent and definitively delivered, thanks also to this work, to the responsibilities of those who want that war and the consciences of the spectators. Around that voice the cinematographic reconstruction, or rather a dramatization that some actors stage to appear the staff of the rescue operations center, connected to the phone with Hind, the ambulances, the Palestinian authority.
Between compassion, anger, sense of impotence and collective emotion, with different roles and accents all remain united and active, despite the tension, in the desire to save the girl, a metaphor for the need to save Palestine all.
The emotion that is felt in the vision is never blackmail or makeup, despite the fact that the work is militant, narrated by a precise and unilateral point of view.
The Voice of Hind Rajab by Kaouther Ben Hania, is difficult to classify in a precise genre: perhaps a dramatization of a news document? Certainly not properly cinema of reality, because there is very little cinema. Maybe he has more the step of a work for TV, but this is an important reflection this?
The feature film is an indignant scream against the horror of the war and the violence on the innocenthas the courage of the violent denunciation as is violent sometimes the man and has the enormous value of raising the question: “What can I do now for peace?”
