The Voice of Hind Rajab, the powerful docudrama from Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania is a haunting portrait of a Palestinian child’s last call for help,
The film features Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel, and Clara Khoury recreating the final, desperate hours of five-year-old Hind Rajab, whose voice over a phone call to the Palestine Red Crescent Society became a symbol of human suffering in Gaza.
The Voice of Hind Rajab made its world premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2025, where it was met with a historic 23-minute standing ovation and earned the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize. It was featured at the Toronto International Film Festival, Gaza International Festival for Women’s Cinema, and the inaugural Doha Film Festival. It has been nominated for Best European Film at the European Film Awards and selected as the Tunisian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
It is set to be released theatrically on December 17, 2025, beginning at New York’s Film Forum and Los Angeles’ Laemmle Theatres before a wider rollout.
January 29, 2024: a 5-year old girl, Hind Rajab, is trapped in a car under heavy fire in Gaza, the sole survivor. Her emergency calls reach the volunteers of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, who desperately attempt to calm and rescue her—the latter obstructed by IDF checkpoints and the unlikelihood of safe passage.
In The Voice of Hind Rajab, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters, The Man Who Sold His Skin) blends the actual phone recordings — which went viral several weeks after this incident — with dramatizations of the emergency workers racing against time, and the situation’s emotional impact, to coordinate paramedics who could save her.
By focusing on one life — and the lives of volunteers who risk their lives to save civilians — Ben Hania brings humanity and urgency to a war that has killed or caused the deaths of over 70,000, per a recent UN estimate.
Kaouther Ben Hania has spoken candidly about why she made the film. “This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief,” she told The National. “Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia. May Hind Rajab’s voice be heard.”
Watch the official trailer for The Voice of Hind Rajab above.
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