Couldn’t unhear her voice: director Kaouther Ben Hania on 'The Voice of Hind Rajab'

New Delhi, Mar 6 (PTI) Not doing anything felt like being complicit in a war crime, says Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania about her decision to make “The Voice of Hind Rajab”, the docudrama about a six-year-old Palestinian girl whose killing during the Israel-Gaza war sparked international outrage.

The film, nominated in the best international feature category at the 98th Academy Awards, recounts the real story of Hind Rajab, who was fleeing Gaza City in January 2024 with her family when their car came under fire from Israeli forces, leaving several relatives dead or severely injured.

When the emergency services operated by Palestinian Red Crescent tried to contact those in the car, Rajab picked up the call. And it is this call, in which she is heard crying and pleading to be rescued, forms the central focus of the film's narrative.

"When I heard the voice of Hind Rajab, it was so powerful and it set me in this state of anger and sadness. I couldn't unhear it and go on with my daily life. So I stopped the other film. I said, ‘No, it's not the moment to do it’. Because not doing anything was like being complicit in this war crime. So I did it out of this feeling, but also out of anger and out of emergency,” Hania told PTI in an interview.

“You know, we can't live in a world where if you have the biggest gun, you rule the world. It's not possible and it's not good for our children,” she added.

The filmmaker said she was preparing to begin another film she had been developing for several years and had finally secured financing for when she heard the story of Hind Rajab. She said she could not sit back and do nothing after that.

Hania is known for consistently engaging with truth in her work, whether it was her breakout film "Four Daughters", about two sisters from a Tunisian family who join ISIS, or "The Man Who Sold His Skin", which follows a Syrian refugee who agrees to have a Schengen visa tattooed on his back by a controversial artist for money.

“The Voice of Hind Rajab” is told from the perspective of Palestinian Red Crescent volunteers, who stay engaged with the frightened child as she describes how all her cousins in the car were already dead and keeps pleading with the volunteers to not abandon her.

As they try to comfort her, they ask her about her school and she says she is in ‘the butterfly class’, and her mother and brother are at home.

Hania has recreated a dramatised version of what the volunteers went through in those hours while merging it with the actual voice of Hind Rajab, who could ultimately not be rescued. The bodies of Hind Rajab, her relatives and the two volunteers who were dispatched to bring her safe, were discovered twelve days later.

Hania said she felt this desperate need to take Hind Rajab’s voice to every corner of the world so that people cannot look away from what happened to her.

“It's a story that we should remember and think about. In the stream of media and social media, it's one small thing, a drop of water in the stream of a lot of things. I needed to take this voice out of this noise and to put it in a place where people can sit, take the time, have the attention, listen to her voice, remember and maybe do something.” While she wanted to make the film, the filmmaker said she was determined to walk away from it if she failed to get permission from Hind Rajab’s mother Wissam Hamadah.

"It's her child, her memory. But she's an incredible woman. She's resilient. She was still in Gaza and mourning. She told me, ‘I want justice for my daughter. So if this movie can help, please do it’.” “The Voice of Hind Rajab” has some of the biggest names from the world of cinema on board as executive producers -- Hollywood stars Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Oscar-winning filmmakers Alfonso Cuaron and Jonathan Glazer.

The movie features actors Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Clara Khoury and Amer Hlehel as the stand-in for the volunteers responding to Hind Rajab’s call.

In February, Hania made headlines with her powerful speech at the 2026 Cinema for Peace gala in Berlin, where she refused her Most Valuable Film award to protest against the international political cover to the war in Gaza, which has killed over 75,000 thousand Palestinians since it started in October 2023.

In her speech, Hania said “Peace is not a perfume sprayed over violence so power can feel refined and comfortable”. She also said cinema cannot be just for image laundering.

Asked what prompted her to refuse the award and the point she wanted to make at the event, Hania said she did not want to be part of a masquerade.

“There are no consequences to this war crime. We didn't show the trial of the perpetrator. There is a total impunity. The situation is getting worse and worse. So receiving an award of peace… What peace? Especially in a room full of politicians.

"This is why I wanted to tell them to keep the award because there are a lot of people in that room that could have done something for peace. But peace for them is just this empty word that they wanted without any accountability. So that's why I felt the obligation to not be part of this masquerade,” she said.

According to Hania, cinema can be a tool for propaganda but also a powerful tool to speak to power.

“This little girl had no power. She's the most fragile. We all know a six-year-old girl around us. So you can imagine the fragility. But people in power don't care. The Israelis don't care. For them, she's collateral damage. In the worst case scenario, she will become, in their imagination, a terrorist one day or she's collateral damage. But this girl had a family, people who loved her and a brother. So you have to address power and tell the truth to power.” A Nadim Cheikhrouha presentation, "The Voice of Hind Rajab" is produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha, Odessa Rae and James Wilson.

The film's India release is in the process of being locked. PTI BK RB RB