POSTPONED The Voice of Hind Rajab: dir Kaouther Ben Hania (2025)

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania has created a docudrama that reconstructs the horrifying true story of five-year-old Hind Rajab as she is bombarded by the Israeli army in Gaza in 2024. Rajab survived the original assault by the IDF, which killed six family members and two paramedics, and she stayed on the phone for hours to the Palestine Red Crescent Society desperately begging for help. Rajab’s heart-wrenching voice is real; the film fictionally reconstructing the drama of the emergency responders in their call centre office.

This is a powerful film, greeted with a 23-minute standing ovation when shown at the Venice Film Festival last autumn. It also begs a few questions about whether the mix of fiction and fact is at all exploitative; but you can make your own minds up about that … Very highly recommended,

It is presented here by the NYUAD Film and New Media Program and screening as part of the CinemaNA series of contemporary Arab cinema.