It was the irrefutable event of Venice 2025; the most talked about movie of the festival despite the 82nd edition of the world’s oldest film fair being a largely lacklustre affair.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, the seventh feature by two-time Oscar nominee Kaouther Ben Hania, was always going to stir debate.
Except that in September 2025, it did not face the type of resistance that greeted the Oscar-winning No Other Land when it premiered in Berlin in February 2024.
By this time last year, the global public had largely converted to the Palestinian cause.
Millions could no longer justify the sadistic aggression by the Netanyahu regime, the sight of starving Palestinian children has awoken Europeans and Americans.
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Unfolding over the course of 24 hours and set entirely in a Palestine Red Crescent Society office, 52 miles away from Gaza, Hind Rajab is a docu-fiction hybrid that dramatises efforts by Palestinian aid workers to save the eponymous six-year-old girl.
Rajab was trapped inside a vehicle by Israeli fire on 24 January 2024 after a tank took aim at it, killing her aunt, uncle, and three cousins.
The film uses Rajab’s voice as the motor of a claustrophobic drama that underlines both the detrimental red tape forced upon Palestinian aid workers by the occupation that long existed before 7 October.
Footage of the real aid workers struggling to cope with the violent bedlam are recreated shot by shot near the end of the film.
The moment the Voice of Hind Rajab took over Venice’s Sala Granda, there was not a dry eye in the house.
Sounds of sniffing and gasping accompanied the projection of the film in the festival’s largest venue.
The overwhelmingly liberal, politically engaged audience of Venice did not need converting; they needed a cathartic vehicle to rage against the racist Israeli regime; to safely chant “free Palestine” at the heart of the event. Ben Hania’s picture was that vehicle.
‘How many more?’
“We’ve seen the narrative all around the world that those dying are collateral damage in the media,” Ben Hania said.
“This is so dehumanising and that’s why cinema, art, every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and face.”
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Actress Saja Kilani, who plays one of the Red Crescent workers, gave a powerful statement that has been widely shared on social media since then.
“On behalf of all of us actors: isn’t it enough? Enough of the mass killing, the starvation, the dehumanisation, the destruction, the ongoing occupation,” she said.
“Hind’s voice is one amongst tens of thousands of children who were killed in the last two years.
“Her story is about a child crying out. No one can live in peace when even one child was forced to plead for survival.”
The triumph of the film at the closing ceremony on Saturday when it earned the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize – the highest honour an Arab film has earned in Venice since Randa Chahal Sabag’s Lebanese feature The Kite in 2003 – was rounded by awe-inspiring expression of solidarity from many of the winners.
Italian star Toni Servillo, winner of best actor for La Grazia, voiced his gratitude and support for the aid flotilla that departed to Gaza from Barcelona last week, stressing that this “a sentiment shared by all Italian cinema: expressing admiration for those who courageously set sail, reaching Palestine, and bringing a sign of humanity to a land where human dignity is cruelly vilified on a daily basis.”
Italian actress Benedetta Porcaroli, winner of best actress in the Orizzonti sidebar for The Kidnapping of Arabella, echoed Servillo’s sentiment.
“They [the activists] remind us that there is a valid reason for getting up in the morning, and it’s called humanity.”
‘It’s a responsibility at the moment to stand by Palestine…I might upset my country but it doesn’t matter to me anymore’
– Anuparna Roy, Indian film director
Moroccan director Maryam Touzani, who won the Audience Award for Calle Malaga, gave a heartfelt speech, emphasising that “the joy I feel is profound but so is the pain I feel as I receive this award today.
“I feel pain because like many others I cannot forget the horror inflicted with such impunity and every second on the people of Gaza and the people of Palestine,” she said.
“How many mothers have been made childless? How many children have been motherless, fatherless, have lost everything. How many more until this horror is brought to an end?”
Indian director Anuparna Roy, who earned the best director prize for her debut Songs of Forgotten Trees, also addressed the Gaza genocide.
“It’s a responsibility at the moment to stand by Palestine…I might upset my country but it doesn’t matter to me anymore,” Roy said.
The ‘real heroes’
Ben Hania’s speech was the most explicit of the evening in its outright condemnation of the Israeli government.
“I dedicate this award to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes,” she said
“The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered. Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real – until justice is served,” she added.
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“Cinema cannot bring Hind back. Nor can it erase the atrocity committed against her. Nothing can ever restore what was taken. But cinema can preserve her voice, make it resonate across borders, because her story is not hers alone.
“It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity.”
Ben Hania also underlined the plight of Hind’s mother Wissam Hamada and brother Eiyad who remain trapped in Gaza.
“This story is not only about memory, it’s about urgency. Their lives remain in danger, as do the lives of countless mothers, fathers and children who wake up every day under the same sky of fear, hunger and bombardment. I urge the leaders of the world to save them.
“I also call for an end to this unbearable situation. Enough is enough.”
The Venice film festival has not taken an official stance towards the Gaza genocide, nor has it released any statements condemning the ongoing breach of human rights in the occupied territories.
Palestinian flags were also barred in the festival vicinity with security guards confiscating them upon entry.
Yet in closing the ceremony with a speech by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Venice broke with tradition to deliver the most political conclusion in its recent history, albeit a seemingly neutral political conclusion.
‘Cinema cannot bring Hind back. Nor can it erase the atrocity committed against her. Nothing can ever restore what was taken. But cinema can preserve her voice…’
– Kaouther Ben Hania, director, the Voice of Hind Rajab
“A greeting from Jerusalem, the Holy Land, where we are living such a such a dramatic, difficult and divisive moment,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said.
“You know the news so I don’t need to go into that, it’s dramatic as are the images of destruction, death and so much pain. One of the problems is that there is so much pain that there is no longer space for the pain of the other,” he added.
The decision not to give The Voice of Hind Rajab the Golden Lion for the best film was quite contentious.
As much as the film was liked, few had qualms with the fest’s biggest prize going to Jim Jarmusch, one of the most beloved American auteurs of the past 40 years, for Father Mother Sister Brother.
More controversial was the complete shutdown of Park Chan-wook’s biting Korean satire No Other Choice, the most widely acclaimed pic of this year’s edition.
Various sources confirmed a heated debate over The Voice of Hind Rajab amongst jury members.
Ethical concerns regarding the employment of Hind’s voice within the film and the fundamental dramatisation of the real-life events had little to do with the jurors’ stance towards Gaza and more with the morality of filmmaking when depicting real-life events.
One thing was clear though: the jury couldn’t ignore the film; the prize was more of a symbolic gesture of cinema’s support of Palestine rather than a reward for the film’s artistry.
In Venice, art took a backseat to the urgent need to collectively work for a halt to the genocide.
An ‘awakening’?
The success of Hind Rajab marks a radical change of position from Hollywood towards Palestine.
The film was co-produced by James Wilson, veteran British producer of The Zone of Interest and Shaun of the Dead.
Major Hollywood names signed on as executive producers for the film, including Academy Award-winning directors Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) and Alfonso Cuaron (Roma) along with Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Brad Pitt.
On Monday, hundreds of actors, directors, and film industrials signed a pledge not to work with Israeli film institutions that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.
“As film-makers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognise the power of cinema to shape perceptions” the letter, which was signed by more than 1,200 industry figures to date, read.
“In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”
Signatories included Oscar-nominated filmmakers Yorgos Lanthimos – who sported a Palestinian pin in Venice – Ava DuVernay, Joshua Oppenheimer and Oscar-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia; along with Oscar-winning stars Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, and Julie Christie. Other signatories include Mark Ruffalo, Ayo Edebiri, Riz Ahmed, Josh O’Connor, Cynthia Nixon and Rebecca Hall.
Speaking at the Venice film festival on Wednesday, actress Saja Kilani said The Voice of Hind Rajab, the new film about the five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, “is not an opinion or a fantasy, it is anchored in truth”, and called for an end to Israel’s genocide. pic.twitter.com/Qrmj7aX9lV
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 4, 2025
The Voice of Hind Rajab is one of three high-profile Palestinian films released in 2025 alone.
Palestinian-American writer and director Cherien Dabis made headlines earlier this year with All That’s Left of You, a sweeping family saga that earned rave reviews at Sundance.
Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir meanwhile is currently showing her historical epic Palestine ’36 starring Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons at the Toronto Film Fest.
The Voice of Hind Rajab will represent Tunisia at next year’s Academy Awards; All That’s Left of You will represent Jordan, and Palestine ’36 will represent Palestine – the first time three Arab countries are represented at the Oscars with Palestinian stories in one year.
All three films have North American and European distribution deals that should attract tens of thousands of viewers in the months to follow.
Rarely, if ever, have Palestinian stories been so ubiquitous in world cinema; never has the Palestinian cause been so widely and unconditionally embraced by Hollywood as it is now.
Collectively, all three provide a portal for recognising the brutality of the Israeli occupation; all three films act as a plea to recognise the humanity of the Palestinian people; all three are a plea for a free Palestine.
