San Francisco Frontiers - Docu-drama gives 'voice' to Gaza victims at Venice Festival

"The Voice of Hind Rajab", a dramatic portrayal of real events from January 2024, left many journalists sobbing at the first press screenings in Venice Wednesday.

Dressed all in black, Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania joined her cast on the red carpet holding a photograph of a smiling Hind Rajab, whose desperate pleas to be rescued form the basis of the film.

"We see that the narrative all around world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media," Ben Hania told journalists.

"And I think this is so dehumanising, and that's why cinema, art and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and face."

Her film has support from Joachin Phoenix -- who attended the premiere -- as well Brad Pitt and Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer ("The Zone of Interest") and Mexico's Alfonso Cuaron ("Roma") all of whom are credited as executive producers.

"I'm very happy, and I never in my life thought that can be possible," Ben Hania said of her A-list Hollywood backers who joined the project after the film's editing was completed.

Some critics have predicted the 90-minute feature will take home the festival's top prize on Saturday.

Its premiere came on the same day as a senior Israeli military official said that a million Palestinians -- around half the population of the famine-hit territory -- could be displaced by a new offensive around Gaza City.

- True story -

Hind Rajab Hamada was fleeing the Israeli military in Gaza City with six relatives last year when their car came under fire.

Left as the sole survivor in the badly damaged vehicle, her calls with the Red Crescent rescue service -- which were recorded and released -- caused brief international outrage.

She was later found dead along with two ambulance staff who went to rescue her.

"The Voice of Hind Rajab" makes chilling use of the real phone recordings, but tells the story through a dramatised Red Crescent team which is trying to coordinate her rescue.

"It is dramatisation, but very close to what they experienced," Ben Hania added.

"Please come to me, please come. I'm scared," Hind Rajab can be heard sobbing repeatedly in the film while bullets fly in the background.

She is described as six years old in the film, but a death certificate viewed by AFP in Gaza shows her age as five.

- 'Stop the war' -

The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point at the 2025 Venice Film Festival where thousands of protesters marched to the entrance of the event on Saturday.

An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.

Hind Rajab's mother, Wissam Hamada, said she hoped the film would help end the war.

"The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything," Hamada told AFP by phone from Gaza City where she lives with her five-year-old son.

Israeli bombardment has killed at least 63,633 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations deems reliable.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said the circumstances of Hind Rajab's death were "still being reviewed", without giving further details.

It has never announced a formal investigation into the case.

- Tensions -

The war in Gaza has regularly caused tension in the cinema world since Israel launched its offensive in October 2023 in retaliation for an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas which left 1,219 people dead, most of them civilians.

Hundreds of actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were "ashamed" of their industry's "passivity" about the war.

Cannes began under the shadow of the killing of Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the subject of the documentary which was picked for a sidebar section of the festival.

A day after Hassouna was told the film had been selected, an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza killed her and 10 relatives.

O.Green--SFF