The Voice of Hind Rajab

Synopsis

On January 29, 2024, Red Crescent volunteers in Gaza field a call from a family trapped inside a car that is under Israeli military fire. Moments later, six-year-old Hind Rajab remains alone on the line, terrified and pleading for rescue. As the emergency volunteers keep her talking, dispatchers must determine if they will be able to send a rescue team across the embattled terrain to save her life.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters) recreates the unimaginably fraught situation in vivid detail for her groundbreaking feature The Voice of Hind Rajab, merging documentary and feature filmmaking techniques to tell the heartbreaking story of the emergency workers who tried to mount a rescue effort to save the girl’s life. Brilliantly marrying real-life recordings and scripted re-enactments pulled from transcripts and first-hand accounts—and casting actors who closely resemble the actual dispatchers—Ben Hania creates an unsettling verisimilitude.

Tense, urgent, and imminently compelling, The Voice of Hind Rajab embeds with the emergency workers as they attempt to comfort Hind, slowly realizing the impossible position they face. The film is a memorial to the courage of those first responders and a tribute to the life of a little girl whose name will not be forgotten.