‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’

Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which begins screening at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center on Friday, Feb. 6, conveys the emotional toll of war on a visceral level. The film’s power to pierce our hearts lies in her ability to jump the boundaries between fiction and documentary by blending archival audio and documentary footage into an intimate narrative.

The story, based on real events, unfolds over just a few hours, all set within the Palestine Red Crescent Emergency Call Center in Ramallah, on Jan. 29, 2024. On this sunny day, despite the seriousness of the work as calls of distress come in and ambulances are dispatched, the staff remains efficient and good-natured.

However, the tenor changes when we are thrust almost immediately into a very personal tale. Omar (Motaz Malhees), one of the rescue operators, is on the phone with a terrified young woman trapped in a car under fire by the Israeli Defense Forces in northern Gaza. Words scroll across the screen, informing us that the recorded call we are hearing is real. While watching Omar’s face, we hear the young woman pleading for help, then, after deafening machine guns, there is silence. Although we are watching a fictionalized version of events, the fact that the recordings are real makes a visceral impact. We feel Omar’s horror in our very being.

His supervisor gets the counselor from the call center to help him. She gives Omar a sticker with a silhouette of an anonymous woman to display on his cubicle wall, a ritual staff does when they are on the phone and lose someone. Within moments, though, Omar is back on the phone, this time with a 5-year-old girl named Hind, who had been in the car and is now the only one left alive. The actual recordings of the conversations with Hind punctuate the retelling of the heroic efforts to save her. We hear her pleading, “I’m so scared, please come,” and that she is terrified of the descending darkness, as those around her, she initially says, “are asleep.” 

Hania keeps the pace brisk as the staff unravels, hitting endless roadblocks to the rescue effort, which is needlessly complicated by political protocol. We must remember to breathe as time ticks away, the situation grows more desperate, and the actors, script, and voice of Hind grow increasingly frantic. 

In a recent interview, Hania explains that the moment she first came across a clip of the call recording, “Something inside me shifted. I felt an overwhelming wave of helplessness and sorrow: not intellectual, but physical, as if the world tilted slightly off its axis. Hind’s voice, in that moment, became something more than a child’s desperate plea. It felt like the very voice of Gaza itself, calling for help into a void, met with indifference, met with silence. It was a metaphor made painfully real: a cry for rescue that the world could hear, but to which no one seemed willing or able to respond.” Hania continues, “From their words, and from the haunting presence of Hind’s voice itself, I began to build a story. A story rooted in truth, carried by memory, and shaped by the voices of those who were there.” 

Ultimately, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which last year received a 23-minute standing ovation after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, might not be an easy film, but it is a profoundly important one.

“The Voice of Hind Rajab” begins at the M.V. Film Center on Friday, Feb. 6. For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.