‘Hind Rajib’s Voice’, about the Gaza drama, shocks Venice
Venice (Italy), Sep 3 (EFE)
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” is that of a six-year-old girl who was killed by the Israeli army while pleading for help from the Palestinian Red Crescent. It is also the title of a film presented this Wednesday, which shocked the Venice Film Festival.
A film by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, competing for the Golden Lion, blends fiction and reality to tell the story of how, in January 2024, it was impossible to save the girl, the only survivor of the first attack on the car in which she was traveling with her aunts and cousins.
Applauded in its first press screenings, the film was one of the most anticipated of the 82nd edition of the festival and has lived up to expectations, with massive support for the film as a firm candidate for the Golden Lion, although there are also voices that lament the instrumentalization of the little girl’s story.
“It’s an element that’s always debated because when you amplify the voice of the Palestinians, they always accuse you of using them, but it’s just another way to silence us,” Ben Hania said at a press conference.
Her appearance before the media began with a reading of a statement from the entire crew by one of the actresses, Saja Kiliani, who plays one of the Red Crescent workers who spoke to the girl.
“Isn’t it enough? Enough of the massacres, famine, dehumanization, destruction, and continued occupation… This film is not an opinion or a fantasy; it is rooted in truth. Her voice (Hind Rajib’s) is one of the tens of thousands of children killed in Gaza over the past two years.”
“It is the voice of every daughter and son with the right to live, to dream, to exist with dignity, and all of this is taken away from them before impassive eyes. How have we allowed children to have to fight for their lives?” the team asked, hoping Hind’s voice will resonate around the world, end the silence surrounding the genocide, and see justice done now, “for humanity and for the future of every child.”
In this regard, the director stated at a press conference that she is confident that “justice will one day be more than just symbolic.” “In an ideal world, there would be justice for all those who have been murdered, but we are still a little far from that point,” she added.
Both the actors and the director were emotional at the press conference following the screening of a film that focuses on the nearly three hours of recordings of the Red Crescent’s conversations with the girl, primarily, but also with her mother and another of her uncles, who contacted them from Germany.
As the minutes pass, the organization members’ helplessness grows as they struggle to obtain the Israeli army’s approval to send an ambulance to rescue the girl, something they ultimately achieve. But just as help is about to arrive, a new Israeli attack kills both the girl and the two Red Crescent men who were trying to rescue her from that hell.
The girl’s voice shook the audience in Venice today, as it did the actors, who heard it for the first time when they began shooting the film, as the director didn’t want them to hear it during rehearsals.
They all emphasized that more than acting, they experienced the girl’s plight firsthand.
Amer Hlehel considered it “a duty” and “an obligation” to do so and it was a way of expressing herself as an artist, something Clara Khoury agreed with, adding that they were not acting: “At the moment we heard Hind’s real voice, I wasn’t an actress; it was me as a human being reacting to her voice.”
While the filmmaker lamented “the narrative that exists around the world saying that those who die in Gaza are collateral damage.” “That dehumanizes them, and that’s why cinema, art, and any artistic expression is important to give these people a voice and a face,” she insisted.
Sometimes the way the media talks about the victims “is shameful,” in the filmmaker’s opinion, acknowledging that she often wonders about the reason for making films. “But it’s important to speak out,” she affirmed.
In this case, her film is also a way to “honor this little girl, her family, and the medical workers who were involved.”
The film closes with images of the Gaza beach, the one that US President Donald Trump announced he would turn into a resort riviera. “That,” Ben Hania added, “makes me wonder what kind of world we live in.”
