In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag’s seminal work of criticism, she argues that in viewing images of suffering our response can be to become desensitized to the shock, that we become overwhelmed with our passivity so as to be lured into inaction. “It is passivity that dulls feeling,” she writes. “The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration.” 

Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab provides a corrective to the flood of images of violence in Gaza that we experience today—usually in a continuous stream on social media. She focuses on one real story: that of Hanood Rajab (nicknamed Hind), a 6 year-old girl who, along with her family members, was attacked by an Israeli tank while attempting to flee Gaza City. Abandoned in a car, surrounded by dead family members, she spent three hours on the phone with the Palestine Red Crescent, pleading to be saved whilst emergency workers wait for hours, with increasing desperation, for the green light that would allow the ambulance safe passage (an 8-minute journey). The ambulance eventually sent was attacked by an Israeli tank, killing both the paramedics. They lost contact with Hind, and she was found dead days later. 

The docudrama reenacts these hours from the offices of the Palestine Red Crescent, as humanitarian workers Omar (Motaz Malhees), Rana (Saja Kilani), Nisreen (Clara Khoury) and Mahdi (Amer Hlehel), attempt to send rescue. All the actors are Palestinian, and their performances are impassioned, flecked with the pain of their lived experiences. Yet at the heart of the dramatisation is the voice of Hind we hear on the end of the line: not an actress, but actual recordings of the call. Reproduced with the permission of Hind’s mother (“For her it was very important that it was the voice of her daughter—she wants justice,” says Ben Hania), the little girl’s voice, terrified and alone, provides a prick of the real more rousing than any photograph or video: “I’m so scared, please come. Come take me. Please, will you come?” It is a voice that encourages us to create a picture in our mind, one that cannot help but elicit pure feelings of rage and sadness. 

As an examination of the life of a young woman—often sidelined on the stages of war and politics—the hybrid documentary continues thematically from Ben Hania’s previous work. Her Oscar-nominated Four Daughters (2024) tracks the story of two Tunisian daughters, the daughters of Olfa Hamrouni who were radicalised to join the Islamic State in Libya. “I think girls are fragile, are something to protect, but they have this beauty,” says Ben Hania. The 6 year-old Hind—whose image we do eventually see, graduating from kindergarten (she tells Rana she is in “the butterfly class”) is paid tribute to, a six year-old who merely wants the war to end so she can go to her favourite place—the beach. Lapping waves open the film, and at the end video footage shows her there, granting the little Hind happiness, even if just in the afterlife of cinema.

A deeply emotive, deeply urgent film, The Voice of Hind Rajab received a 23-minute long standing ovation (a record for the festival) during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival (my own screening the day later, received a many minutes-long applause and cries of “Free Palestine” from the audience). A Rabbit’s Foot spoke to Kaouther Ben Hania at the festival about her Golden Lion-tipped documentary.

It’s a wonderful film. It seems important that your direction and the narration allow us to understand what happened without any propaganda, without any slogans. How did you avoid that?

Because the story itself was so heartbreaking, and it touched me in my soul, when I heard the voice of Hind Rajab for the first time on the internet, I was, I mean, I felt sadness, sorrow, but also helplessness. And it was a feeling shared among the world, you know, and the voice of Hind Rajab for me was the very voice of Gaza being, you know, starved, ethnically cleansed, the ongoing genocide, and nobody can help, you know. So the first question was, I have this recording of the last voice of Hind Rajab, how to find the right cinematic way to honor this voice? So I thought, if I felt helplessness, what about the employees of the Red Crescent? She was asking them for help. So for me, telling this story through their point of view was important because when we think about a child asking for help for sending an ambulance, all over the world you immediately send an ambulance. Here we see that the reality is different. So for me, it was important to tell this story as it actually is. I don’t need any slogan. The story itself is so beyond imagination. 

How close is the dialogue between the Red Crescent workers to the reality? 

When I started doing this movie I started by immediately contacting the Red Crescent and talking to the real people to ask them what happened that day. So they talked with me honestly about their feelings and I had to translate all this into a movie. So I was very close to what they taught me, because for me honouring their work—which is an impossible situation—was very important and then when I cast the actors, every actor talked with the real person to portray them. So for me it was very important it’s a dramatization but with a document [of her voice] in the movie. 

Did you feel the need to hold back a little bit, because the tragedy is so horrific, so the melodrama would not suffocate the centre of the story? 

All my actors are Palestinian so they brought their life experience and shared tragedy with them, they went through exile and they heard the voice of Hind. So for them and for me it was beyond acting. I don’t have to direct them, you know, they were immersed in the moment and with my DOP we tried to shoot to let them be in the moment so for me this authenticity was very important. It wasn’t about telling them please don’t cry here and please I need a tear. This was horrific. I couldn’t ask for this, you know. I was very lucky to have those actors, because they are wonderful. 

You keep the “real” elements in the documentary to a minimum. Do you agree that we’re so bombarded by images of real violence and that we are desensitised to it and therefore, dramatisation creates a way in that situation where we just feel completely numb to these images? 

Yeah, you are right, that’s why maybe for me it was important to be in this open space which is a really very ordinary place, you know, like a modern office and to live this, to hear the voice of this little girl. For me it was very important and at the end when we see what really happened, the real images, it’s not like we are seeing them on social media, like scrolling. We arrive at this moment with all the emotional charge of the movie and we understand the people who were there. So for me this is the power of cinema. It gives you the possibility to immerse yourself in one little story that can say so much more about the global situation. 

The voice of Hind Rajab helped to give a bigger visibility to what’s happening in Gaza. But, you know, it’s been one year and almost two years and nothing happened. I want to ask you about your take on what’s going on and how the international community is doing nothing? 

I did the movie because of this. I was asking myself, what can I do? Because of this feeling of helplessness. I’m not a politician. I’m not an activist. I’m a filmmaker. I can make a movie. So that’s why I did this movie. But as you say, movie, it doesn’t prevent more killing. It’s still today, which is beyond evil.

The newspapers today speak about this movie as the frontrunner for the Golden Lion. What would that represent for the movie and for everything?

I don’t know. I mean, it will represent a tremendous spotlight, but already being in Venice, and I love Venice Film Festival, I have a great relationship with the festival, giving us this spotlight is important. And the reaction yesterday was so overwhelming, so enormous. And you know, when I did this movie, my purpose was that this voice, it should be heard. So being here in Venice, it’s a very, very good place to start.

People have been putting Anne Frank and Hind Rajab together on the internet. You put her name in the title and you said she also represents the voice of Gaza. Like Anne Frank, like she’s a real person, but also a symbol, or how would you describe it?

Yes, I mean with this little girl, my desire was, you know, that she lived, she went back to the sea as she wanted, you know, it’s not the case, so yes, this tragedy has something emblematic, like Anne Frank was, Hind Rajab is the very voice of Gaza, you know, asking for help, but nobody can help, actually.

What with your relationship with the family, the mother of Hind Rajab like? How did you explain the movie to her?

I knew from the beginning that I couldn’t do anything without the blessing of the mother, for me it was important to, before starting, even thinking, you know, to contact the mother and to tell her. She was grieving, for a mother it’s maybe the most horrible thing to lose a child in those conditions, but with Anne Rajab, Hind’s mother, she’s one of the most I think courageous and resilient people and yeah she’s in the movie actually we see her at the end. It was very important that it was the voice of her daughter—she wants justice for her daughter. 

I also like it very much that the feelings of claustrophobia you know in the office. Can you tell us a little bit more about that decision, that it’s a small space, but with a lot of so-called action? 

I like very much “one place” movies, you know, one set. But the story is not only in the office, it’s in the car.  So we are in the claustrophobic set of the Red Crescent offices, but we are also within the car with our imagination. So it’s not only about this place, it’s something. And this is the beauty of cinema, you know. It’s sound and imagination. It goes beyond what we see. It’s what we feel and what we can imagine. So you show how difficult is the process for Red Cross workers to help people in Gaza. And I think it’s something people don’t really know. For ordinary people living their life, when you call for an ambulance, it’s really hard. yeah exactly it’s eight minutes away so it needs eight minutes to rescue this girl and and they forget people don’t know the reality of occupation what does it occupation mean it means that there are Kafkaian rules so you can’t rescue this girl and even if you follow every step we see what happened at the end. It’s a huge machine of rules and laws to make the life of the colonized impossible and to kill them actually.

How did you cast the actors? 

I talked a lot with the real Red Crescent member, the real Omar, Rana, Nisreen, Mahdi and when I started the casting they were in my mind like I need people, I need actors that can portray them faithfully you know and I was really lucky it was a casting process. I was really lucky to have the opportunity to work with them. I was really lucky, very, very lucky to have those great actors, you know, Sanjay Kileni portraying Rana, it was one of her first acting part, you know, she is, I think she will explode, I wish her a great actor’s career because she has this kind of rare sensitivity, all of them, you know, Motaz, Clara, Amer. 

The things that Omar says to Mahdi is sometimes really hard. Dramatically you get emotion versus reason. Was that part of your  dramatical construction and how much of that is simply what these people are like? 

Yes, I talked a lot with the real Omar, he’s explosive, like he’s angry, which is normal, you know, so for me it was very important to have an angry character, it was him, you know, and Mahdi is the one more mature, trying to follow the rules because he knows the reality of the thing, so for me it was there is room for confrontation, but they want the same thing, and you understand both positions, and this is what I love about them, you know, like they have the same purpose, but different ways of seeing things. There is dramatisation but there are real elements coming through.

Did you ever think about using an actress for the voice of Hind? 

I thought about it for like 30 seconds maybe, because I have to consider every possible thing before making a choice. But her mother told me something when I talked with her. She told me, I want my daughter’s voice to be heard. So for me it was a moral compass, you know. I couldn’t silence the real voice of Hind. And because I’m a filmmaker, bring a child to do this, it has no meaning.

Do you think the most important audience might be Israelis themselves? 

Do you mean should I show the movie in Israel? Can I show the movie in Gaza? I never wanted my movie to be shown in Israel, in the Israel cultural institution, because for me it’s a normalization with the occupation. The day that I will be allowed to show my movies in Gaza, maybe there will be a balance between Gaza and the Palestinian and the Israeli kind of equal situation. 

There has been No Other Land. Do you feel fear about the consequences of this one?

If you surrender to fear you do nothing. 

I was interested that your previous film [Four Daughters] was about daughters, and this film is kind of maybe less directly, but it is also about the kind of fate of a young girl, and I was wondering if that was a kind of coincidental thing.

Maybe it’s a coincidence. I did also a movie about a young girl, Beauty and the Dogs which was also about a girl and my next movie is about a teenager. Maybe the girl in me is asking me to tell their story. I think girls are fragile, are something to protect, but they have this beauty. So I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but I feel the urge to tell her story.