The Voice of Hind Rajab director Kaouther Ben Hania discusses her International Feature Oscar-shortlisted film.
Kaouther Ben Hania has made most crucial film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, which just made the International Feature Oscar shortlist.
The film tells the harrowing true story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car, struggling to survive, with Israeli forces outside shooting at anything that moves. Red Crescent volunteers are on the phone with her, while others are trying to get through all the ridiculous yet necessary red tape hoops to get a rescue team to her. All the while you hear young Hind’s voice desperately asking to be rescued.
With The Voice Of Hind Rajab, Ben Hania expertly blends actual audio with dramatically staged reenactments of what went on at the call center. And by keeping things claustrophobic, the intensity builds authentically without the need to travel outside, and the inevitable conclusion is made all the more devastating.
At the Venice Film Festival world premiere screening the film received the longest led ovation in the history of the Biennale. The film also won the Silver Lion.
The Tunisian filmmaker directed several award-winning shorts before her first feature, The Challet of Tunis, opened the ACID section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. She followed that with Zaineb Hates the Snow; a documentary filmed over six years. Her next feature, Beauty and the Dogs, was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Best Sound Creation Award.
In 2020, her fantastic film The Man Who Sold His Skin was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best International Feature Film Category.
Four Daughters was her doc-fiction hybrid follow-up in 2023 which examined the complex relationship between mothers, daughters and sisters. The film also sheds light on how the country’s political situation contributed to the two women turning to terrorism and how inherited trauma as well as the generational continuation of cruelty and violence shaped the heartbreaking lives of these women.
Four Daughters made the International Feature short list and was nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Oscar category.
Ben Hania has already completed a new movie, Mimesis.
Willa released The Voice of Hind Rajab the film in New York and Los Angeles on December 17, 2025, with a national rollout to follow.
The Contending had a video chat with Ben Hania about her powerful film.
