December 18, 2025
FILM: THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
DIRECTED BY: KAOUTHER BEN HANIA
STARRING: SAJA KILANI, MOTAZ MALHEES, AMER HLEHEL
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
There have been other films about emergency call centers but none quite like The Voice of Hind Rajab. It is a re-enactment of events that took place on January 29, 2024 at a call center filled with Red Crescent volunteers trying to respond to those under siege in Gaza. What’s most interesting, and also highly disturbing, is that the call focused on within this film uses actual recordings of a young girl trapped in a car with her entire family having been shot around her. The volunteers are played by actors listening to and responding to the six-year old girl, Hind Rajab.
It’s chilling to hear her cries for help. She just wants them to come and get her. She sounds scared as gunfire is heard outside of her car. The first phone responder, Omar, played with sensitive excellence by Motaz Malhees, we can see growing increasingly concerned that Hind is in serious danger. Others come to help him on the call, including a Muslim volunteer named Rana. She lends a motherly quality to the interactions with Hind but she too becomes quite alarmed at what is happening to the young girl trapped inside the car. Making this story based on the real event even more intense is the coordinator of such rescues, Mahdi, played by Amer Hlehel. His character brings more strife to the situation because he already knows they’ve lost more than a dozen other rescuers during the fighting. He has to make a decision to send more in to save the girl. This leads to significant frustration and in-fighting among the staff.
Some call him a coward for not acting quickly but there’s a deeper philosophical question at hand: Knowing the extreme danger the rescuers would be in, is it wise to send them to save this one young girl whose car is being surrounded by tanks and more gunfire? So, while we might also consider him a foe here, he really is put into a major conundrum. As if this is a Hollywood movie, the fights between the staff members become physical within the small space of the call center. Stakes and tension gets higher and Hind’s chances appear more and more grave.
To further bring to life the harrowing experience the staff is enduring, director Kaouther Ben Hania uses handheld, unsteady camera movements which create an extreme sense of frenetic and exhausting energy. As a bit of a reprieve though, there are some quieter moments, such as when Hind is guided to pray and breathe slowly. Viewers get to see the various methods such as these used to calm a caller down even when circumstances remain dire.
As much as this is Hind’s story it clearly also pays homage to the heart-wrenching work that must be done by these volunteers as they deal with some difficult calls as well as their own personal reactions, fears, and doubts while attending to them. It’s hard not to care for them when they lose it as they step away from the phone. What it takes to do their job is empathy, tolerance, and incredible patience.
The film has already won major awards at film festivals in, among other cities, Chicago and Venice. It is Tunisia’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar and it would be hard to imagine it not getting nominated. It is that powerful.
The Voice of Hind Rajab opens in New York and Los Angeles on tomorrow. It will expand to other cities after that, including a run at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago beginning January 9th.
FILM: THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
DIRECTED BY: KAOUTHER BEN HANIA
STARRING: SAJA KILANI, MOTAZ MALHEES, AMER HLEHEL
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
There have been other films about emergency call centers but none quite like The Voice of Hind Rajab. It is a re-enactment of events that took place on January 29, 2024 at a call center filled with Red Crescent volunteers trying to respond to those under siege in Gaza. What’s most interesting, and also highly disturbing, is that the call focused on within this film uses actual recordings of a young girl trapped in a car with her entire family having been shot around her. The volunteers are played by actors listening to and responding to the six-year old girl, Hind Rajab.
It’s chilling to hear her cries for help. She just wants them to come and get her. She sounds scared as gunfire is heard outside of her car. The first phone responder, Omar, played with sensitive excellence by Motaz Malhees, we can see growing increasingly concerned that Hind is in serious danger. Others come to help him on the call, including a Muslim volunteer named Rana. She lends a motherly quality to the interactions with Hind but she too becomes quite alarmed at what is happening to the young girl trapped inside the car. Making this story based on the real event even more intense is the coordinator of such rescues, Mahdi, played by Amer Hlehel. His character brings more strife to the situation because he already knows they’ve lost more than a dozen other rescuers during the fighting. He has to make a decision to send more in to save the girl. This leads to significant frustration and in-fighting among the staff.
Some call him a coward for not acting quickly but there’s a deeper philosophical question at hand: Knowing the extreme danger the rescuers would be in, is it wise to send them to save this one young girl whose car is being surrounded by tanks and more gunfire? So, while we might also consider him a foe here, he really is put into a major conundrum. As if this is a Hollywood movie, the fights between the staff members become physical within the small space of the call center. Stakes and tension gets higher and Hind’s chances appear more and more grave.
To further bring to life the harrowing experience the staff is enduring, director Kaouther Ben Hania uses handheld, unsteady camera movements which create an extreme sense of frenetic and exhausting energy. As a bit of a reprieve though, there are some quieter moments, such as when Hind is guided to pray and breathe slowly. Viewers get to see the various methods such as these used to calm a caller down even when circumstances remain dire.
As much as this is Hind’s story it clearly also pays homage to the heart-wrenching work that must be done by these volunteers as they deal with some difficult calls as well as their own personal reactions, fears, and doubts while attending to them. It’s hard not to care for them when they lose it as they step away from the phone. What it takes to do their job is empathy, tolerance, and incredible patience.
The film has already won major awards at film festivals in, among other cities, Chicago and Venice. It is Tunisia’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar and it would be hard to imagine it not getting nominated. It is that powerful.
The Voice of Hind Rajab opens in New York and Los Angeles on tomorrow. It will expand to other cities after that, including a run at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago beginning January 9th.