Zürcher Nachrichten - Harrowing docu-drama gives 'voice' to Gaza victims at Venice Festival

"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 told AFP 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.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said the circumstances of Hind Rajab's death were "still being reviewed", without giving further details.

It has never announced a formal investigation into the case.

- Tensions -

The war in Gaza has regularly caused tension in the cinema world since Israel launched its offensive in October 2023 in retaliation for an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas which left 1,219 people dead, most of them civilians.

Around 370 actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were "ashamed" of their industry's "passivity" about the war. They included Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche.

Cannes began under the shadow of the killing of Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the subject of a documentary, "Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk", which was picked for a sidebar section of the festival.

A day after Hassouna was told the documentary had been selected, an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza killed her and 10 relatives.

Other movies premiering on Wednesday in Venice include star-packed "In the Hand of Dante" by Julian Schnabel, a gangster story set between New York and Italy about the theft of the original manuscript of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy".

H.Roth--NZN