A six-year-old girl named Hind Rajab made a desperate call on January 29, 2024, from Gaza City. Her family’s car had been hit, her relatives were dead or dying, and she was left trapped, pleading for help. For hours, she stayed on the line with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, her voice shifting between fear, exhaustion, and a determination and composure beyond her years. The Red Crescent made repeated attempts to rescue her, yet the ambulance they sent never returned. Hind was later found dead along with two paramedics. The record of her call now forms the backbone of The Voice of Hind Rajab, a docufiction set almost entirely inside the call center that listened to her words and faced the impossible.
Director Kaouther Ben Hania had already shown her ability to handle real-life events with precision and respect in her last film Four Daughters, which blended documentary and staged reconstructions and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Here she applies a similar approach with sharper immediacy: we sit inside the call center, handheld cameras filming as responders react in real time as Hind’s voice fills the room. The focus is on recapturing the helplessness of those who listened. Some cling to procedure, some seem resigned to the odds, but all of them change as the film goes on, and it becomes, in parts, a study of how ordinary people grapple with the intensity of such a call.
Taken purely as a film, it frames the story in the shape of a thriller, not that different in execution from 2021’s The Guilty. Stakes are set from the start, and the constant obstacles, such as permissions, route negotiations, and sudden silences, sharpen the urgency. The tension grows not just from the fate of Hind but from watching responders shift: even those who treated it as routine work inevitably become personally attached and immersed in the cause.
That feeling, however, was not always carried across to me. Because the perspective never leaves the call center, and I did not have the full context of these people, what was happening on the other end of the line remains hazy. We hear Hind’s words, but the exact actions outside the frame are not always clear. What could the dispatchers actually do? Why did the ambulance never return? And how does this fit into the broader conflict situation? I do not think Ben Hania’s hybrid approach is at fault, as it strikes an ethical balance and creates universality, with actors reacting to real-life events, turning it into an allegory. But the execution feels incomplete and might have benefited from more information about the full context, the location, or the strategies to capture better what was in people’s heads, making the stakes even more heartfelt.
Still, by following its approach, the film fulfills its primary purpose: to keep Hind’s voice alive and impossible to ignore. Many major producers attached their names here, from Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner to Alfonso Cuarón and Jonathan Glazer, to ensure this story reached audiences. Hearing a child plead with such desperation, yet still showing bravery in her tone, is wrenching in a way no staged image could equal. The final moments, when we are finally asked to step into her world more fully, are devastating. The rest of the film does not always reach that power, but The Voice of Hind Rajab remains a powerful experience, urgent and necessary, even if its execution never fully achieves immersion.
Editorial note: The rating reflects an attempt to evaluate this as a film.
This is part of Reviews On Reels TIFF 2025 Coverage. Due to the hectic rhythm of a film festival, it may be tweaked in the future.
Still courtesy of TIFF.