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“Come get me. They’re shooting!”

Long after seeing The Voice of Hind Rajab, the five-year-old’s voice still echoed in my ears. It became impossible to unhear her confused, scared and desperate cry for help. Kaouther Ben Hania, who was compelled to direct the film after chancing upon Rajab’s voice while scrolling through social media, is standing on an ethical minefield here. A fictional film – which splices real-life recordings between the Red Crescent volunteers and Rajab into itself – it could’ve resulted in a jarring, self-conscious film. But to the makers’ credit the hybrid form of the film feels almost seamless while recreating the crushing disappointment of the war room – where a handful of volunteers spend an entire day trying to arrange an ambulance to rescue the child. This could have been a sentimental, exploitative film, but it’s, again, Ben Hania’s ability to hold back at the right time that made The Voice of Hind Rajab one of the most essential films of last year. The film is magical in the way it fuses truthfulness and creative license. 

It’s no surprise that among the dozen films to have emerged from Gaza in 2025, Ben Hania’s film has stood out. It got a 24-minute standing ovation at its premiere in the Venice film festival 2025, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. Featuring A-list names like Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Jonathan Glazer, Spike Lee (among others) as executive producers, it also won the Cinema for Peace award at the Berlinale 2026, where Ben Hania turned down the award for the jury’s diktat on the festival’s platform to keep it apolitical. “Peace is not a perfume to be sprayed over violence. If we talk about peace, we........

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