The Voice Of Hind Rajab, the latest feature from Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, will debut in Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Announcing the title this morning during his official press conference, Venice head Alberto Barbera described The Voice Of Hind Rajab as a moving film that he believed would “most impress audiences and critics.”
The film tells the story of a young Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year along with six of her family members. Rajab and her family had been fleeing Gaza City when their vehicle was shelled, killing her uncle, aunt, and three cousins. Rajab and another cousin survived and contacted the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) seeking aid. The car was later found with both Rajab and the paramedics dead. Rajab’s death sparked global protests, most notably at Columbia University, where students renamed Hamilton Hall as Hind’s Hall. The American rapper Macklemore also released a protest song called Hind’s Hall.
The film’s official synopsis reads: January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 6-year old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.
Ben Hania, a veteran documentary filmmaker, said in a statement following Barbera’s presser that she first encountered the story of Rajab while awards campaigning for her 2024 feature Four Daughters. That film debuted at Cannes Film Festival in 2023 where it won the documentary award and went on to land a documentary nom at the 2024 Academy Awards.
“I was in the middle of the Oscar campaign for Four Daughters, and mentally preparing to finally enter pre-production on a film I had been writing for ten years,” she wrote.
“Then, during a layover at LAX, everything shifted. I heard an audio recording of Hind Rajab begging for help. By then, her voice had already spread across the internet. I immediately felt a mix of helplessness, and an overwhelming sadness. A physical reaction, like the ground shifted under me. I couldn’t carry on as planned.”
Ben Hania added: “The heart of this film is something very simple, and very hard to live with. I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes.”
“That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us. This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief. It speaks to a universal grief,” she wrote. “And I believe that fiction (especially when it draws from verified, painful, real events) is cinema’s most powerful tool. More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling. Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia.”
You can read Ben Hania’s full statement below. Other titles announced this morning by Barbera include Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, Jay Kelly, the latest film Noah Baumbach, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac. The 2025 Venice Film Festival runs from August 27-September 6.
Kaouther Ben Hania’s Statement:
“I am deeply honored that The Voice Of Hind Rajab has been selected for the Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival. My heartfelt thanks to Alberto Barbera and the entire selection committee for offering this incredible spotlight on the film.
There was something electric in the energy around this project so immediate, so alive. In all my years as a filmmaker, I never imagined it would be possible to go from start to finish in just 12 months.
Here’s how it all began: I was in the middle of the Oscar campaign for Four Daughters, and mentally preparing to finally enter pre-production on a film I had been writing for ten years. Then, during a layover at LAX, everything shifted. I heard an audio recording of Hind Rajab begging for help. By then, her voice had already spread across the internet.
I immediately felt a mix of helplessness, and an overwhelming sadness. A physical reaction, like the ground shifted under me. I couldn’t carry on as planned.
I contacted the Red Crescent and asked them to let me hear the full audio. It was about 70 minutes long, and harrowing.
After listening to it, I knew, without a doubt, that I had to drop everything else. I had to make this film.
I spoke at length with Hind’s mother, with the real people who were on the other end of that call, those who tried to help her. I listened, I cried, I wrote.
Then I wove a story around their testimonies, using the real audio recording of Hind’s voice, and building a single-location film where the violence remains off-screen. That was a deliberate choice. Because violent images are everywhere on our screens, our timelines, our phones.
What I wanted was to focus on the invisible: the waiting, the fear, the unbearable sound of silence when help doesn’t come. Sometimes, what you don’t see is more devastating than what you do.
At the heart of this film is something very simple, and very hard to live with. I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes. That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us. This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief. And I believe that fiction (especially when it draws from verified, painful, real events) is cinema’s most powerful tool. More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling. Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia.
May Hind Rajab’s voice be heard.”
