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MOVIE OF THE WEEK December 19, 2025: THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB

Jennifer Merin , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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A mix of heartbreaking reality and dramatic reenactments, Kaouther Ben Hania’s intense The Voice of Hind Rajab humanizes — in a horribly tragic way — the impact of the deadly conflict between Israel and Palestine. It’s impossible not to be moved as the film tells the true story of a young girl trapped in a bullet-riddled vehicle while aid workers desperately try to overcome the odds to rescue her.

The movie takes place entirely within the Gaza office of the Red Crescent, an international humanitarian aid organization that’s a partner of the Red Cross. It’s January 24, 2024, a little more than three months after Israel declared war on Palestine in the wake of Hamas’ October 2023 attack. There’s no shortage of death and destruction around them, but the Red Crescent team is doing their best to keep their spirits up — until Omar (Motaz Malhees) ends up on the phone with a young woman who’s in a car with her family in a neighborhood under fire.

After their call ends in the horrifying sound of bullets and the woman’s screams, Omar is left dazed and despondent. But then they discover that there’s someone still alive in the vehicle: Six-year-old Hind Rajab, who’s scared, confused, and alone. Omar and his colleague Rana (Saja Kilani) keep Hind on the phone while their boss, Mahdi (Amer Hlehel), tries to arrange for an ambulance crew to retrieve her. But the coordination protocols are complex, and the risk of not following them is great. Tensions run high as the team waits for a greenlight while young Hind pleads for help.

This would be a harrowing story in any circumstances, but the fact that Ben Hania uses the actual recordings of Hind’s conversations with the Red Crescent staff members makes it nearly unbearably distressing. She is vulnerable, bewildered, frightened, demanding — in other words, she is a very real, very traumatized child, and your heart shatters for her, as well as for those who are trying so hard to help her. In some of the film’s eeriest moments, Ben Hania overlays the dramatized scenes with clips of footage of the real-life aid workers, driving home the fact that all of this really happened, exactly this way — and will continue to happen as long as innocents are caught up in the battles between nations. — Betsy Bozdech

Team #MOTW’s comments:

Sherin Nicole The Voice of Hind Rajab reaches out to us from the wreckage of our compartmentalized humanity. It begs us to do more than memorialize this very real little girl; we must hear her. The claustrophobic setting of the emergency call center is akin to a locked-room tragedy. A docudrama that closes in, merging us with the characters’ powerlessness, the pain of empathy, and the hope that this time, hope will be rewarded.

Leslie Combemale The film got a 23 minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, which is a new record for the longest standing ovation at a film festival. Some say that Ben Hania is sensationalizing or leveraging a child’s pain for the sake of her film, but I disagree. This is a true story of a war crime, and since Hind Rajab, as well as two ambulance drivers died that day, I think the film does justice to their memory in a way that little else could. People’s opinions about the Gaza war differ dramatically, but one thing is indisputable. Killing an unarmed child is wrong, no matter the circumstances. Given that, Kaouther Ben Hania’s film shows art really can reveal the best and worst of humanity. Read full review.

Jennifer Merin Tunesian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is a harrowing truth-based drama about the efforts of the Red Crescent (an international partner of the Red Cross) first responders team to rescue a six year old Palestinian girl who is trapped in a car that is in the line of fire from Israeli troops in Gaza on January 29, 2024. Her parents, also in the car, have been killed. She uses her cell to contact the Red Crescent dispatch center for help. The only hope for her survival is the Red Crescent team, but they must follow certain protocols or risk getting killed themselves. The film is a tension-filled waiting game. Hind Rajab appears in the film only in the archival recordings of her actual phone calls to the Red Crescent recue center, and in photographs. Both of these archival elements are intercut with the scripted performances of the Red Crescent workers. Hind Rajab’s story is devastating, as is that of the first responders who are trying to save her. The Voice of Hind Rajab is a very tough watch that is a must see. It is Tunisia’s official Oscars submission.

Sandie Angulo Chen: The Voice of Hind Rajab is an unforgettable docudrama that’s incredibly difficult to watch (and listen to). The film, directed by Kaouther Ben HaniA uses real audio footage from Rajab, a 6-year-old calling into the Red Crescent for help after her family’s car was shot at by Israeli military forces. The movie dramatizes how the Red Crescent workers respond to the devastating call. The call itself does much of the heavy emotional lifting, but the call center actors are all excellent, conveying the horror of the situation. For audiences that can handle the subject matter, this is a moving must-see drama.

Liz Whittemore Filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s latest film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, is a microcosm of trauma that will undoubtedly break you. The audience listens to war crimes in real-time through recordings of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car with the deceased members of her family. Her frantic phone calls reach the Red Crescent (an international partner of the Red Cross) as they wrangle morality and strategy to get to her before she dies alone. The claustrophobic, handheld camerawork adds to the immersive feel. The performances of our first responder ensemble are extraordinary. But it is the archival recordings of Hind’s pleas that maintain a stranglehold on your head and heart. The members of the Red Crescent are the faceless heroes of this continued genocide. The Voice of Hind Rajab is both a tribute to the very real, innocent victims and those who try to save them. If you aren’t crying through this film, you need to check your humanity.

Cate Marquis Heartbreaking and harrowing, The Voice of Hind Rajab re-enacts the experiences of the Palestinian Red Crescent staffers as they tried desperately to send an ambulance to rescue a 6-year-old girl trapped in a car, surrounded by her dead family, in a Gaza battle zone. The event was covered extensively in the international media at the time, in January of 2024, and Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania uses the actual recordings of the voice of the little girl, Hind Rajab, nicknamed Hanood, and others. Even though the little girl was only eight minutes away from a hospital, and despite the dogged, heroic efforts of the Red Crescent staffers racing to save her, the rescue becomes an agonizing ordeal, caught up in a stop-and-go labyrinth in navigating the various permissions, through the Red Cross, from Palestinian and Israeli authorities.

FILM DETAILS:

Title: The Voice of Hind Rajab

Director: Kaouther Ben Hania

Release Date: December 17, 2025 (limited)

Running Time: 89 minutes

Language: Arabic with English subtitles, English

Screenwriter: Kaouther Ben Hania, archival audio recordings

Lead Performers: Amer Hlehel, Motaz Malhees, Saja Kilan, Clara Khoury, Amer Hlehel

Distribution Company: Willa

AWFJ Movie of the Week Panel Members: Sandie Angulo Chen, Betsy Bozdech, Leslie Combemale, Loren King, Cate Marquis, Jennifer Merin, Nell Minow, Sherin Nicole, Liz Whittemore

Previous #MOTW Selections

Other Movies Opening This Week

Edited by Jennifer Merin

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Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin is the Film Critic for Womens eNews and contributes the CINEMA CITIZEN blog for and is managing editor for AWFJ.org, the online magazine of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, of which she is President. She has served as a regular critic and film-related interviewer for The New York Press and About.com. She has written about entertainment for USA Today, The L.A. Times, US Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Endless Vacation Magazine, NY Daily News, New York Post, SoHo News and other publications. After receiving her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts (Grad Acting), Jennifer performed at the O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference, Long Wharf Theater, American Place Theatre and LaMamma, where she worked with renown Japanese director, Shuji Terayama. She subsequently joined Terayama's theater company in Tokyo, where she also acted in films. Her journalism career began when she was asked to write about Terayama for The Drama Review. She became a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor after writing an article about Marketta Kimbrell's Theater For The Forgotten, with which she was performing at the time. She was an O'Neill Theater Center National Critics' Institute Fellow, and then became the institute's Coordinator. While teaching at the Universities of Wisconsin and Rhode Island, she wrote "A Directory of Festivals of Theater, Dance and Folklore Around the World," published by the International Theater Institute. Denmark's Odin Teatret's director, Eugenio Barba, wrote his manifesto in the form of a letter to "Dear Jennifer Merin," which has been published around the world, in languages as diverse as Farsi and Romanian. Jennifer's culturally-oriented travel column began in the LA Times in 1984, then moved to The Associated Press, LA Times Syndicate, Tribune Media, Creators Syndicate and Arcamax Publishing. She's been news writer/editor for ABC Radio Networks, on-air reporter for NBC, CBS Radio and for Westwood One's America In the Morning. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association in the Film, Documentary and TV branches and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. For her AWFJ archive, type "Jennifer Merin" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).