Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB [Toronto International Film Festival 2025 - Toronto, Canada]

"The Voice Of Hind Rajab" [Special Presentations] which recently won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival just days before playing at TIFF is a raw portrayal of recent times told from a unique perspective with an almost nail-biting, real-time concept. It brings to mind in a different context, "All The President's Men" in that its story is a ticking time clock (literally) but in even a more raw way. Director Kaouther Ben Hania who made the also raw "Four Daughters" documentary takes a documentarian-mixed approach that really speaks to the story in many ways. It uses the real audio of a young girl trapped after the attack on Gaza last fall as Red Crecent volunteers tried to negotiate to get their people in through the Red Cross and the opposing army to save this one little girl whose family traveling with her had been killed. The fact that the audio is real and so seamlessly integrated into the story gives it such an immediacy. You see the rage and the frustration on the volunteers faces but also the system in which these kinds of operations need to function in times of war with an almost surgical precision (when there most times is nothing precise about war). The perspective simply through reaction and how Hind Rajab describes what she is seeing is quite triggering of course for many.

Ben Hania has a such a steady hand with all of her actors that the point is razor sharp. Saja Kilani and Motaz Malhees who play call center operators/counselors Rana and Omar respectively personify what the context really is about. It is about powerlessness when the power to save could be so easily given. Watching the phases of emotion and reaction within the call center (the film does not cut to the action in Gaza) keys to why the real audio from the ground is so important. As time continues and the minutes turn into hours, the helplessness and dread of the situation does seep in. Clara Khoury (who also was seen in "Sink") and Amer Hlehel play counseling and management respectively inside Red Crescent from a different level but are also embedded in the office deep into the night (and likely most nights). At one point Ben Hamia uses social media footage that was taken on the day while the actors are doing the same dialogue out of focus in front of frame. She also does this blending the audio from the actors playing Omar and Rana to the voices of the real people (Rana is actually still working at Red Crescent). Kilani and Ben Hamia spoke of this during the Q&A with Ben Hamia saying she could have waited to make this film and let some time pass but the importance of the message and story required the immediacy of now. She mentioned this is why she included footage of Hind's real mother in the film towards the end. Hind's mom wanted the story told so that this kind of tragedy in some way can be averted.

This is a tale of caution, of resilience but also the beaucracy that even those trying to save face. But it also shows a darker side of human nature as well simply by consequence of action. The path of Red Crescent rescue workers and how that is negotiated is again a horrifying byproduct of war (specifically this war in Gaza) entails. Hlehel as the coordinator can only do so much. At one point he locks himself in a bathroom as his fellow workers wait for the green light since the pressure and frustration is so great. Ben Hamia conveys this through the screen but also the necessity to push on, in success or failure, Hlehel's Madhi doesn't want to lose any more people and a wall of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in trying to save innocents is a powerful image that adorns the wall. "The Voice Of Hind Rajab" is an intense movie, viscerally made, using the powerful tools that Ben Hamia has refined in recent years to make a movie both important, thought provoking but also impeccably made. A-

By Tim Wassberg