Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix are one of the Hollywood stars who joined Couser Benchania’s Gazaset drama The Voice of Hind Rajab as executive producers ahead of the film’s premiere of the Venice Film Festival.
Also participating in the film are “Roman” filmmakers Alfonso Quarron and Rooney Mara, “Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer and Pitt’s Plan B production partners Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Their support will help boost the profile of “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” It will premiere at Lido on September 3rd before making its North American debut at the Toronto Film Festival.
Written and directed by Ben Hania, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” tells the story of a six-year-old girl named Hind Rajab, who is attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza and is stuck in a car that later died. The film uses audio recordings between Hind Rajab and a volunteer at Red Crescent to receive an emergency call and try to keep her on the line to get an ambulance for her.
“The heart of this film is very simple and very difficult to live with. We can’t accept a world where no one comes to help. That pain belongs to all of us. This story is not just Gaza. It speaks to universal sadness.” “And fiction (particularly when it is portrayed from a validated, painful, real event) is the film’s most powerful tool. It’s more powerful than news-breaking noises and scrolling forgetting. The film can be kept in memory. The film can resist amnesia.
Other works by Ben Chania include two Oscar-nominated films, “The Four Daughter,” a 2023 drama about a family that split up after their two children joined and left the Dash Fighters in Libya and “The Man Who Sold His Skin.”
The ongoing war in Gaza is expected to shine the spotlight at the Venice Film Festival, which begins Wednesday. In addition to “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” a pro-Palestinian demonstration planned by local activists will be held later in the week.
