January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 5-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.
The Voice of Hind Rajab won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice and is shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Oscars.
The Garden Cinema View:
After the thrilling Four Daughters (2023), Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania returns with another fierce docufiction.
During the ongoing war in Gaza, several documentaries have attempted to make sense of the horror. All filmmakers work under severe restrictions, barred from entering Gaza, yet none achieve this level of craft. Using an authentic recording of a five-year-old girl killed by the IDF in Gaza in 2024, Ben Hania recreates the child's heart-wrenching communication with two paramedics as she sat trapped in her uncle's car with six dead family members. Relying mostly on close-ups and filmed in a single room, the film generates enormous tension and suspense through exquisite shot selection and editing. Ben Hania knows how to tell a story, and given how chilling and utterly heartbreaking this one is, she does it justice.
There has been discussion about the ethics of Ben Hania's manipulative docufiction method. Our feeling is that all filmmaking is essentially manipulative, particularly supposedly realistic documentaries. And in a time when Western audiences have become desensitised to experiencing war through the comfort of our screens, The Voice of Hind Rajab's raw and, at times, ruthless approach is necessary to cut through this apathy.
