Hull Independent Cinema: The Voice of Hind Rajab

Dir Kaouther Ben Hania | Tunisia, France, USA, UK, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus | 2025 | 89 mins | Rated 15 | Arabic, English
This remarkable film reconstructs the real-life ordeal of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car in Gaza after an Israeli attack killed her relatives. Using recordings of the actual phone calls Hind made, the film presents to us Hind’s whispered pleas for rescue as she waits beside the bodies of her family. Dispatchers from the Palestinian Red Crescent work feverishly to get help to her, weighing up the risks to their staff from ongoing attacks in the area against their fervent desire to rescue Hind. A searing indictment of the terrible human cost exacted by Israel’s destruction of Gaza.Starring Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Clara Khoury

AWARDS AND FESTIVALS
Chicago FF: Winner, Jury Prize; Nominee, Best Film
Venice FF: Winner, 9 awards inc Grand Jury Prize, UNICEF Award, Best Foreign Language Film; Nominee, Best Film
Best Film noms at London FF, Ghent Int’l FF, European Film Awards

REVIEWS
“Hind Rajab’s story is almost too terrible to face, yet this masterwork from Kaouther Ben Hania demands we bear witness.” ★★★★★ Leila Latif, Little White Lies

“Discomfiting and emotionally devastating in the extreme, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s dramatised account of Hind’s death is utterly essential film-making.” ★★★★★ Nick Howells, London Standard

“Hania has form in metafiction, however this is a step up even from the queasily gripping “Four Daughters.” The gravity of the subject has sharpened her storytelling instincts.” Sophie Monks Kaufman, IndieWire

“No other film this year will get more people talking, or more people crying.” Nicholas Barber, BBC