The Voice of Hind Rajab should have won Venice's top prize. But the result wasn't a cop-out

"There are standing ovations and there are jury decisions. Jim Jarmusch's droll, quirky, very charming film Father Mother Sister Brother got a mere six minutes for its standing ovation at Venice though one day we're going to have to introduce some Olympic-style standardisation to these timings. But it got the top prize, the Golden Lion, from Alexander Payne's jury. Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine (15 minutes), with Dwayne Johnson as a troubled MMA fighter, got best director."

"But Kaouther Ben Hania got a whopping 23 minutes for her startling and audacious The Voice of Hind Rajab, which uses the real audio recording of a terrified five-year-old Palestinian girl phoning for help in Gaza before her death, with actors playing the anguished emergency responders on the other end of the line. People were sobbing in the auditorium, and predicting the surely inevitable Golden Lion would be a tipping point for international political opinion."

"The Venice jurors had it in their power to make history. Didn't they? That isn't how it works. The Voice of Hind Rajab only earned the grand jury prize, the second prize, to online fury from those who thought this decision was a copout and a blandly pro-American copout at that. But every jury decision is a copout. All juries are horse-trading and compromising and collectively accepting second-choice movies that no one objects to from film-makers whose prestige they all endorse."

Jim Jarmusch's droll, quirky film Father Mother Sister Brother received a six-minute standing ovation at Venice but won the Golden Lion from the jury. Benny Safdie won best director for The Smashing Machine, and Paolo Sorrentino's La Grazia earned Toni Servillo best actor, while Cai Shangjun's film brought best actress to Xin Zhilei. Kaouther Ben Hania's The Voice of Hind Rajab generated a 23-minute ovation using real audio of a five-year-old Palestinian girl's desperate call before her death, moving audiences to sob. The film received the grand jury prize rather than the top award, sparking online fury and claims of jury compromise. Juries commonly make consensus-driven, second-choice decisions through horse-trading.

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