WRITER & DIRECTOR
Kaouther Ben Hania
Four Daughters, The Man Who Sold His Skin, Aala Kaf Ifrit

STARS
Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel and Clara Khoury

This strong contender for the Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Academy Awards ® from Oscar-nominated writer and director Kaouther Ben Hania is a dramatisation based on real events that uses real call recordings from the Palestinian Red Crescent Emergency Call Centre.

On January 29th, 2024, Red Crescent volunteer, Omar (Motaz Malhees) receives a call from 6-year-old Hind Rajab, who is the last alive occupant of a vehicle in a blocked-off area under heavy and semi-constant gun fire in Gaza. Though the call centre is located 52 miles away in Ramallah, West Bank, from where Hind Rajab is, the nearest ambulance to rescue her is just an 8-minute drive from her location. Before it can get the green light for dispatch, however, there is a lengthy and convoluted process that must be arranged and followed first. Last time that was coordinated for someone, it ended up taking several hours for the ambulance to arrive! Determined to do everything within their power to ensure that isn’t repeated, Omar works tirelessly with his colleague, Mahdi (Amer Hlehel), responsible for liaising with others outside of the call centre, his supervisor Rana (Saja Kilani), who is exhausted after a lengthy shift, and the call centre counsellor, Nisreen (Clara Khoury), to save Hind Rajab. 

A testament to the high-quality filmmaking competency and clarity of thought underpinning all that transpires during what is a harrowing phone conversation is coming away from The Voice of Hind Rajab and having no immediate words to describe it. Instead, there are thoughts, many thoughts, and profound feelings, that leave viewers with more questions than answers, just as it ought to.

Before seeing The Voice of Hind Rajab, I wondered if it might be anything like Eye in the Sky, a similarly themed and very excellent tense political thriller starring Helen Mirren, the late Alan Rickman and Aaron Paul from 2015. While the situation at hand is similar, the production of this Oscar-nominee more closely resembles that of The Guilty, being set almost entirely inside the call centre. That might sound suffocating to some, but this film seamlessly and powerfully immerses viewers into the room with its central characters courtesy of the camerawork, intel at hand and the performances, and completely grounds us in its present. A present that is always agonising, whether because the situation itself is often helpless and always out of their control or courtesy of the knowledge that is acquired pertaining to the procedure of having a safe pathway created for an ambulance to save a little girl’s life. The absolute most this close-knit but understandably highly emotional team can do is keep little Hind Rajab’s spirits alive and voice heard.

Meanwhile, Kaouther Ben Hania keeps her film as close to organic as dramatisations get, using almost no music score whatsoever and integrating voices from the real recordings alongside what her actors are eloquently performing. By the time the credits roll and thereafter, a few points truly standout that must be said.

The Voice of Hind Rajab isn’t simply a soon-to-be-forgotten reenactment of a very recent real-life event. The narrative this film is purporting with validity but without preaching is seismic in scale and inescapable from the memory. It is provoking those across the globe who are in a position to help but do little more than shake their heads, shed a tear and share a condemning social media post to ask how Hind Rajab’s ordeal and outcome is acceptable for her, let alone countless others. It is replacing blatant lies of those who dare to deny fact with indisputable truth. Quite admirably, among everything our desperate central characters hear, say and do, there is not an ounce of hate spoken towards the aggressors. Rather, all of their genuine care and non-stop efforts steadfastly remain devoted to saving that girl’s life, emphasising just how pure-at-heart and loving the Palestinian people generally are. Finally, The Voice of Hind Rajab reverberates more strongly compared to most other film’s based on a true story for we know what is witnessed here is still happening without consequence to this very day.

The Voice of Hind Rajab is showing in selected cinemas across Australia from March 5th, 2026.

Moviedoc thanks Madman for the invitation to the screening of this film.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc

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