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Film about five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza leave much of audience and many journalists sobbing A gut-wrenching new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year received a 23-minute standing ovation after its premiere at the Venice film festival on Wednesday. The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania, had been described by critics as ‘‘the most powerful and urgent entry of this year’s festival”. It left much of the audience and many journalists sobbing as it was screened for the first time. Continue reading...

When the subject is Gaza, it’s hard to know what to say anymore, especially when caught in conversation with people who are unmoved by the plight of the Palestinians, people who reject the international consensus that Israel is inflicting apartheid policies and genocidal campaigns against an occupied population. Omar, an impassioned Red Crescent volunteer in the soul-shaking new feature from Kaouther Ben Hania, wonders at a certain point in the tense action how it can be that countless online images of maimed, orphaned and slaughtered Palestinian children have been met by so much silence and seeming indifference. Ben Hania counters that silence, not with an explicit argument but with an experience, a movie forged in the universal and very specific language of the single-location thriller.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s film about the killing of a six-year-old Palestinian girl is clearly hitting a nerve.

The filmmakers behind the Gaza-set drama The Voice of Hind Rajab, one of the most anticipated movies at this year’s Venice Film Festival, used the opportunity of the project’s first major press conference to make a powerful plea for peace. After the film’s director, Kaouther Ben Hania, was greeted by a lengthy standing ovation, her star, Palestinian-Canadian actress Saja Kilani, read a prepared statement on behalf of her collaborators.

In January of 2024, Hind Rajab was evacuating her home in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City, as ordered by Israeli forces, alongside six of her family members. By the time Layan, Hind’s aunt, managed to get in touch with dispatchers from the humanitarian group the Palestinian Red Crescent, they were the only survivors in the car, stuck within an impromptu siege and surrounded by IDF soldiers and tanks.

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