DayofPal— A wave of high-profile Hollywood support is swelling behind The Voice Of Hind Rajab, a harrowing new drama based on true events from Gaza, as it prepares for its world premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival next week.
Oscar winners Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Alfonso Cuarón, and producer Dede Gardner, along with Oscar-nominated actor Rooney Mara, have joined the project as executive producers.
The emotionally charged film, directed by acclaimed Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin), dramatizes the final hours of six-year-old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza after desperately pleading for help over the phone.
The film, which features real audio recordings of Hind’s calls for rescue, has been described as one of the most powerful and emotionally resonant entries of this year’s festival lineup.
The drama revisits the tragic story that gripped the world in early 2024 when Israeli forces advanced through Gaza City, Hind and her family attempted to flee in a private vehicle, only to be shelled.
Her uncle, aunt, and three cousins were killed instantly. Hind and a cousin survived the initial attack and phoned the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) for help. Hours later, the vehicle was found destroyed, Hind, her cousin, and two PRCS paramedics who responded were all killed.
Director Ben Hania’s film is not a documentary, but rather a cinematic retelling of a real event that stirred international outrage and grief.
“The heart of this film is something very simple, and very hard to live with,” she said in a statement. “I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes. That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us.”
Backing from Hollywood and the global creative community has amplified the film’s profile significantly. Pitt, Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner’s Plan B Entertainment receives an “In Association With” credit, alongside UK broadcaster Film4 and Middle Eastern media company MBC.
Canadian media mogul Frank Giustra, producer and journalist Jemima Khan, and designer Sabine Getty also join as executive producers. CAA agent Maha Dakhil is acknowledged with a special thanks in the film’s closing credits.
Following its Venice debut, The Voice Of Hind Rajab is set to screen at several major international festivals this fall, including Toronto, San Sebastián, Busan, and London.
Describing the film as “a universal story of grief, memory, and moral failure,” Ben Hania emphasizes the role of cinema in preserving truth, saying “Fiction, especially when it draws from verified, painful, real events, is cinema’s most powerful tool. More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling. Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia.”
With its heart-wrenching subject matter and global backing, The Voice Of Hind Rajab is expected to be a major talking point on the Lido and beyond.
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