The shock of 82nd Venice shows
At the beginning of 2024, Kaouther Ben Hania is in Los Angeles to promote his documentary Olffa girlsappointed to the Oscars. There, he learns the assassination through Hind Rajab’s Israeli army, a five -year -old girl from Gazan. He was with his uncle, Aunt and four of his cousins as he fled from Gaza by car. Aimed at the Israeli fire, it is the only survivor of a first attack. Wrapped in the car, among the bodies of his killed relatives, for several hours he will be in contact with the Palestinian red crescent, responsible for other organizations to organize his evacuation by ambulance. Before a new attack prevails in turn …
Upset, Kaouther Ben Hania interrupts his American journey and the other project he worked on at that moment. He comes into contact with the Crescent Red Palestinian, which provides her with 70 minutes of telephone recording between the girl and her employees. So the production of Hind Rajab’s voiceA unique film of docu-fiction, 1 hour of paralying and overwhelming. This September 3, 2025, he was presented in competition at the 82nd Venice exhibition and received a record of 23 minutes.
False fiction, true documentary
Most of the images of Hind Rajab’s voice They are fiction, reconstituted with a professional casting in the Ramallah offices of the Red Palestinian red exchanges with Hind and the efforts so that the ambulances come in place of the attack. But it is his voice we hear, with the recording that Kaouther Ben Hania has been able to use. At different times, it also overlaps its reconstituted images of employees of the rescue company the images of its true employees, captured on the smartphone on the day of Hind Rajab’s death.
This device, in a film that uses the thriller codes and the voltage inherent in a rebellious report, has divided the amateur and professional audience. If Hind’s mother validated the approach and accompanied the project, appearing at the end of Hind Rajab’s voiceThe question always arises: to what extent cinema, even in its documentary genre, be grasped by reality, is this in this case the most tragic reality of our time?
A movie for our time
Hind Rajab’s voice It is therefore a monumental, intransigent and desperate violence, an unprecedented gesture of cinema and, it must be desired, inimitable. Impossible not to be invaded by emotion and, above all, ignore the necessary intention of its author: to give voice to the Gazaoui people, a population under a constant and private fire of the expression by the media embargo imposed by the Israeli army in the area. And give him that particular voice, that of a murdered child, who became the symbol of the thousands of other children killed by the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip on 27 October 2023. On 30 July 2025, the Washington Post counted, in support, at least 18,500 children killed.
Shot with modest means and standing as much as possible with objectively established facts, we do not see Hind Rajab’s voice Logically nothing of the place of the attack and the camera does not leave the offices of the red crescent. No graphic violence on the screen, otherwise, ground, consisting of this small voice on the phone, interruptions of communication, the difficulties to be put on the road to ambulances. Ambulances that will also be attached and their killed pilots. It is thus in its reach, in the cutting of communications that immediately follows the sound of the shots, that all the horror of Hind Rajab’s voice.
Will Kaouther’s film Ben Hania be at the 82nd Venice list shows? We will know it on Saturday 6 September, but it is certain that it will be a date.
Source: Cine Serie
Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.
