Gaza’s girl’s story wins 24 minutes of spawning in Venice

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania said on Thursday that she hopes that the predatory reception given to her new film “The Voice of Hind Rajab” at the Venice Film Festival will help bring her painful story to audiences worldwide.

Reported in the last hours of a 5-year-old girl from Gaza who died in 2024 after being trapped in a car under an Israeli fire, the film drew a 24-minute revolution at its premiere on Wednesday-Maks the biggest one this year.

“It was overwhelming because I didn’t expect that,” Ben Hania told Reuters. “I am so grateful in Venice for the choice (of the film) and give us such an incredible beginning of the film’s career.”

The applause only ended when officials had to ask the public to leave because another movie had to be examined. Amer Hlehel, an actor who plays a red crescent sender who is trying to organize the girl’s rescue, said he had mixed feelings over the thunderous reception.

“There is a guilty feeling that we are celebrating, while people are still suffering from starvation and mass murder,” he said, adding that the cast and crew thought it was “in a mission” to tell Rajab’s story to the rest of the world.

The girl was trying to leave Gaza on January 29, 2024, when the vehicle she drove fell under Israeli forces. He survived the original shot and asked the Red Crescent Personal-sound used in the movie-to save it.

Israel finally gave the green light to rescue after a three -hour wait, but contact with the ambulance crew was cut shortly after arriving on stage. Rajab’s bodies, some of her relatives and the two doctors were found days later.

The Israeli forces initially denied that its troops were inside the car. However, a later UN report accused Israel. Israel said this week that the incident was still under review and denied further comments.

“Hind Rajab’s voice” has not yet secured a US distributor, but Ben Hania said he remained promising. Movies that are critical of Israel can fight to get a wide liberation in the United States. A hard film about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, “No Nother Land”, won the best Oscar documentary of this year, but despite its critical success, no major US distributor has bought the project.

However, Ben Hania’s film has attracted some of Hollywood’s top names as executive producers, giving it an additional industry spot, including actors Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara. “I hope he will see it in the US,” Ben Hania said, noting that Tunisia has already chosen it as a submission to the best international feature at the 2026 Academy Awards.

“The most important thing is that ‘Hind Rajab’s voice’ reaches everyone around the world and Oscars and Venice here is a big door,” he said, rejecting any proposal that the film may prove to be controversial. “The murder of a child should not be divisive, he is a crime.”