#the-voice-of-hind-rajab

#the-voice-of-hind-rajab

The Voice of Hind Rajab has been nominated for an Academy Award for best international feature, a recognition for the Tunisian film that features the voice of a 5-year-old girl whose phone call begging for help was heard across the world before she was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. The film is a mix of a documentary and drama that weaves in the recordings of Hind's phone call along with scripted, dramatized scenes of Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers as they agonized over trying to save her. It was nominated alongside four other films.

With startling audacity, Ben Hania has used the real audio recording of Rajab's heart-wrenching voice, while fictionally reconstructing the drama of the emergency responders in their call-centre office, with real people played by actors, talking, shouting and emoting in response to Rajab's actual voice. The result was greeted with a 23-minute standing ovation at Venice, about a quarter of the film's running time, with journalists and festival attenders reportedly sobbing in the auditorium.