Voice of Hind Rajab director made film ‘to bear witness’ and ‘not feel helpless’

“They are shooting at me. Please come and take me. I am afraid.”

When I heard director Kawthar Ben Hania for the first time Recording an emergency phone call to Hend Rajaba frightened six-year-old Palestinian girl begs for help during the siege in Gaza City in 2024, saying on social media that she knew immediately what she had to do.

After pausing the film she was about to make, the two-time Oscar-nominated Tunisian actress called her producer and they agreed to shift focus to telling the story of the girl who was killed — likely by Israeli gunfire, according to a number of media investigations — along with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and two paramedics who were sent to rescue her.

“It haunted me,” Ben Hania told BBC News of the audio recording, which is the centerpiece of her Oscar-shortlisted documentary drama, which was released in UK cinemas last Friday.

“I was really angry, I was sad, I felt helpless, and I hate when I feel helpless.

“I asked myself this basic question, ‘What can I do? I’m a filmmaker, so I can make movies.’

She adds: “We started working on Hind Rajab’s voice in this way so that we do not feel helpless, so that we do not accept, so that we bear witness.

“Because not doing so, to me, was complicity in some way.”

Hind Rajab’s car was hit by suspected Israeli gunfire as she and her family tried to escape bombing during the two-year war in Gaza.

Several family members were killed, but Hind was able to answer a call from helpers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

The ambulance she was trying to reach was also bombed, leading to the death of Hind, her family, and the ambulance crew.

The Israeli military initially stated that none of its forces were in the area where Hind and the others were killed.

But this suggestion has been called into question after independent investigations by the research agency Judicial architectureIn cooperation with non-governmental organizations (Non-governmental organization) Ear shot And journalists from The islandIt concluded that the damage to the car and ambulance was consistent with Israeli tank fire.

The Israeli military later said it had “launched raids on terrorist targets” with forces operating in Gaza City neighborhoods, including Tal al-Hawa, where Hind made the emergency call.

Her case was cited by the United Nations An investigation committee accuses Israel of committing war crimes, which it denies.

An Israeli army spokesman told the BBC that the matter was still being reviewed by the Israeli Fact-Finding Evaluation Mechanism.

Ben Haniyeh’s film aims to tell the story of what happened to Hind and her family, in Arabic and English, from the point of view of Red Crescent volunteers at the Ramallah Contact Center in the occupied West Bank.

Ben Hania says it is “based on true events” and “grounded in truth.”

“At some point, with all this evidence, I thought we were done explaining,” she adds.

“Cinema can do something better, which is to arouse sympathy.”

This feature combines audio of the girl’s real, heart-wrenching final phone calls to the Red Crescent, with visual dramatization using actors to portray the volunteers.

They try to keep her calm and conscious as it becomes clear that she is surrounded by the corpses of her relatives.

Critics have praised the emotional impact of the performances, while pointing out the problems inherent in mixing documentary with drama.

said Variety’s Jay Lodge It was “impossible not to be moved” by the recording at the heart of the hybrid film heard at an “agonizing distance”.

But he felt that “the ethics of the concept and its implementation are questionable.”

In a four-star review, Robbie Cullen from The Telegraph He said the feature “goes beyond shock value” and presents viewers with a “moral dilemma.”

“I’m afraid to watch this movie,” he wrote. “However, now that I have seen it, I find that my opinion has changed, thanks in large part to the philosophical discretion of Ben Hania’s approach.”

The director – who had the blessing of Hend Wissam’s mother before filming the film – says she did her best to “respect the testimony” of the volunteers and what they told her about that day.

She did not communicate with the other party, because she says: “My film is not an investigation.

“It has already been investigated,” she adds, referring to the above findings, as well as those of other major news anchors including The Washington Post and Sky News.

Increasingly tense scenes appear in the film between call center employee Omar, played by Moataz Malhis, and his boss Mahdi, played by Amer Hlehel.

Al-Mahdi is searching for a safe route that the Israeli army has agreed to – through intermediaries – for his medics to make the eight-minute journey to carry out the rescue attempt.

Omar becomes angry at his boss’s insistence on trying to negotiate with Israel.

Actresses Saja Kilani and Clara Khoury, as call center colleagues Rana and Nisreen, respectively, round out the cast of Palestinian origin.

We watch as they hear gunfire or an explosion in the background before the phone connection goes completely dead.

“Even actors, at some point, stop acting,” says their director. “They weren’t performing.”

Malhis confirms this. He tells us that he had panic attacks during filming and thought his heart was “going to explode” during one scene, which for him was “like a real conversation with a child.”

“It was a difficult experience, but it was worth giving it everything.”

Its director confirms that she wanted to share with the public what she felt when she first heard the girl’s call for help. “I thought she was almost talking to me to save her.”

“I need to go back to this moment when she could have been saved,” she said to herself. Before the war “fundamentally failed her.”

in Another four star reviewThe Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said there was “a reckless, cruel kind of provocative intelligence in what Ben Hania is doing.”

“Is this in bad taste? Problematic? Well, in a world where directors preoccupy themselves and we with made-up stories about made-up people, Ben Hania at least grabs one of the most pertinent issues of our time with both hands and finds a way to put it under our noses,” he wrote.

She explains that the main question that Ben Hania was asking while filming the film was: “How do we make this little girl’s voice resonate?”

“Because the world doesn’t want to hear it. It’s not comfortable to face it.”

“For me, it was important to honor her voice and make it resonate beyond borders.”

Fearing it would be seen as “niche”, the filmmakers reached out to some famous Hollywood faces – including Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara – who signed on as executive producers.

Phoenix and Mara were present when the film received a record 23-minute standing ovation afterwards It has its world premiere in September at the Venice Film FestivalIt also won the Grand Jury Prize.

“I was like, when are they going to stop?” Ben Hania recalls the “amazing reaction.”

“And they actually stopped because the theater asked us to leave, because there was another movie!”

“There was a real moment of solidarity,” Mahlis adds. “You can feel that people are there with you. You are not alone in this world.”