The Voice of Hind Rajab

Review by In the Frame participant Perun Bonser

In the Frame is a program that fosters inquiry, reflection, and an appetite for cinema. As part of our In the Frame program, up to four emerging film critics had the opportunity to watch, reflect on and review films in the Perth Festival Lotterywest Films 2025 – 26 season. 

In 2024, The Israeli Defence Force invaded Gaza in retaliation for the October 07 2023 attack by Hamas. A car fleeing Gaza was fired upon by the IDF. Miraculously, a 6 year old girl named Hind Rajab survived but the other occupants, her extended family, were killed.

These are the events that lead up to the start of the film, The Voice Of Hind Rajab. And, although this very brief paragraph and the following review does almost nothing to articulate the complicated and tragic “history” of Palestine, it does establish how this conflict can have a devastating impact on the innocent and most vulnerable. People, who were born into something that for them isn’t “history” but a very present reality that no one should have to experience. 

The Voice Of Hind Rajab is a film that also isn’t a history lesson, rather, it elevates the short life of Hind Rajab to something more than just another statistic in this ongoing genocide. I am confident you will remember her voice and long after the credits roll. 

Assuming you agree with the rhetoric I've used in my review, that the Israeli Defence Force did in fact invade Gaza and that Palestinians are experiencing intentional acts of genocide by Israel, I can then assume that you already empathise with Palestinians and that you might already be convinced of this film’s message. You may think to yourself that you don’t need to watch this film, why would you? What more could this film tell you that you don’t already agree with? If this is you, then I encourage you more than anyone else to see this film.

The Voice Of Hind Rajab takes place entirely within a Red Crescent Society emergency call-centre operating out of the West Bank. We follow the emergency call-centre volunteers as they respond to the constant stream of emergency calls.

The story kicks-off when the volunteers receive a call from 6 year old Hind Rajab, asking for them to save her. What happens next gives us, the audience, a harrowing look into the daily lives of these volunteers and the logistical and bureaucratic nightmare that they must wade through on a daily basis.

The volunteers keep Hind calm and responsive while they work to dispatch an ambulance to save her. Unfortunately, the centre manager needs to follow a slow and gruelling negotiation procedure with the IDF to allow an ambulance safe passage through an active battle. Photos of ambulance volunteers killed in the line of duty are neatly arranged in the manager’s office, a grim reminder of the danger facing the drivers and what happens when proper procedure isn’t followed. And sometimes, even when it is. This conflict between the manager, the volunteers, and Hind Rajab’s calls for help is what drives the film and reveals something that cannot be articulated in any news article or social media content.

The Voice Of Hind Rajab is a co-production between Tunisia and France with filming taking place over three weeks in Tunisia, overseen by an impressive list of executive producers; Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuarón, Jonathan Glazer, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and Brad Pitt. 

Director, Kaouther Ben Hania, has an extensive film career with a list of awards and nominations to match. Her films span genres and tone but what they all seem to have in common is a story that’s grounded in a reality that most of us will never experience, populated by people we can’t help but relate to. The Voice Of Hind Rajab is no exception.

The film, a “docu-drama”, uses the actual recordings of the Red Crescent volunteers’ phone calls with Hind Rajab. These recordings are woven seamlessly throughout the film, the handheld “doco-style” cinematography emphasises every frantic moment of the volunteers. The actors perform their respective roles phenomenally in blurring the lines between what’s real and what is reenactment. This is portrayed expertly by a short mobile phone video-recording of the actual Red Crescent volunteers, punctuating the film’s devastating climax.

From the moment you hear Hind Rajab’s voice in the opening sequence to the gut-wrenching ending, The Voice Of Hind Rajab is a tense edge-of-your-seat thriller that is unapologetic in the reality it portrays and the emotional discomfort it presents to the audience.

This film does not hold your hand nor does it try to comfort you. In fact, in a traditional sense, you will not be treated like an audience. Rather, this film treats you like a witness and absolutely nothing more. You will not feel the catharsis from a traditional “happily ever after” ending. Instead, you will feel a swirling mix of anger and sadness just like the Red Crescent volunteers we’ve just spent the last 89 minutes, with. And just like them we will feel utterly powerless. This all begs the questions, “Why am I watching this?” 

As I mentioned before, you may think that this isn’t for you because you’ve seen the news stories, read the articles, and openly advocate for Palestinians while hoping their suffrage eventuates into a bright and fulfilling future. But, you might also feel that there is nothing you can say or do to prevent this out-in-the-open and well documented genocide in any meaningful way. So…of course you might already feel powerless long before you knew this film existed. This is a completely natural emotional response to any overwhelming tragedy and yes, it feels terrible, so why see a film that would make you feel this way?

If it isn’t obvious, this is me, I am describing myself and how I “rationalised” my way into thinking this film had nothing to show me. Which is why, again, I encourage you more than anyone else to see this film.

You are not treated like an audience, you are witnesses; to the story of Palestine, to the story Hind Rajab’s short life, but also, to the heroism and sacrifice of the Red Crescent volunteers, everyday Palestinians doing what they can in a world where they’re actively oppressed from doing anything at all. Their stories are what changes us, it is absolutely what changed me.

There is always something we can do even when the world tells us there isn’t. Even if it means sitting with the discomfort of being wedged between our own anger and sadness while we journey back home from the cinema. We should all be in quiet yet constant revolt against our own apathy that so easily seduces us into thinking we have no power because the truth is, as exemplified by the Red Crescent volunteers, we are never powerless. That is what this film shows us, that is the story of The Voice Of Hind Rajab.