“Please Save Me…”: ‘The Voice Of Hind Rajab’ At LPFF
- Zarah Hashim
- 18 hours ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 14 hours ago
When the world around you is burning and you feel all alone, what do you have left? What sustenance keeps you going? What cannot be taken from you?
Your voice.
Your voice is the most powerful tool you have when you are the voiceless figure, spoken for by those who do not know you. The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025) acts as this protest, a protest against letting the voices of Palestinians go unheard and undetected.
London Palestine Film Festival joins us again this year for more films of resistance, history and the unknown parts of the Palestinian existence. Tunisian director, Kaouther Ben Hania, has brought to Western screens one of the most poignant pieces of cinema I have witnessed. This reenactment of the true story of Hind Rajab, follows Omar (Mohtaz Malhees), Rana (Saja Kilani), Mahdi (Amar Hlehel), and Nasreen (Clara Khoury), Palestinian Red Cross Society members in the West Bank, who provide ambulances for Palestinians in need. When a distraught uncle messages all the way from Germany about a six year old girl being stuck in a war zone in Gaza, the team are confronted by their limited power. This is a distressing and harrowing film, built on the real suffering of six year old Hind Rajab.
Kaouther Ben Hania is an acclaimed filmmaker and director, having been awarded the César Award for Best Documentary for her film Four Daughters (2023), nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2023 for her film The Man Who Sold His Skin (2023), and now with The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025), having received the Grand Jury Prize 2025 at Venice Film Festival. Her filmography is a map of resistance; it is a marker of protest, allowing her to reconstruct the narratives surrounding forgotten peoples and their forgotten life experiences.
Hania’s film is a frantic cry for help, from both Hind and the Palestinian Red Cross team – their desperation, exhaustion and the tension between hope and despair is so eloquently done. Her directorial style for this docufilm is encompassed in many close up shots, taken from over the shoulder, and extreme close-ups. Through this, we, the audience, are engrossed in the tension, the worry, the determination and the sadness. We are complicit in their suffering by watching them, as if they were fish in a tank, locked away, only to be observed.
Throughout, we are made aware that what we are watching is a reenactment of a real event, of a real life and a real reality. Hania is incredible with her vision. In one scene, another character is recording Nasreen having a phone call with Hind and her mother, and in that transition, we see the real-life Nasreen; the background is blurred so our attention is on the true scenes which were witnessed by the real Omar, Rana, Mahdi and Nasreen. At this moment, the room fell silent, accompanied by sniffles and tears. You become aware of the actuality of this situation, and your heart breaks all over again.
As an Iraqi-Polish woman with a nine year old sister who is Palestinian-Polish, my encounter with this film became personal, more so than I believe a Western audience may have. At the start of the film, we are told that the audio recordings we hear from Hind are the real deal; they are her voice, her one remaining reminder of her existence, and they are guiding us through her tragedy; she is able to reclaim her existence through this film. What I remember most was how she pleaded and begged: “Please come… I’m scared… please come… save me.” These words, her last, etched into my body, my soul as I picture my little sister, both so innocent and young to experience this fear and grief. Both undeserving of this fate.
Underserving is an interesting word to use here, as no human is deserving of such a violent demise, yet it seems Palestinians are. The world has shaped the Palestinian existence by its relationship to tragedy, and although this film makes us witnesses to this systemic failure, we also celebrate Hind. Hania incorporates whispers of the sea throughout the film. The opening scene is a transition of the voice memo to waves, a calming start to a chaotic and stressful film. Toward the end, Hind’s mother is interviewed and talks about how Hind loved the sea. Gaza is a coastal province, it is a land that has an ocean awaiting its foot, but not boats to take flight and explore. The juxtaposition of the oceans' freedom, as opposed to the occupation of Gaza, is a reality we become conscious of.
A point of contention in the plot was the action (or rather inaction) which took place in the rescue of Hind. Mahdi, the man who is responsible for contacting the Minister of Health or the Red Cross Society for safe routes to take to send aid, becomes the scapegoat for Omar’s frustration with the bureaucratic process of human lives. Through this plotline, we are aware of the steps it takes in order to save a Palestinian, and through it, you become overwhelmed, sharing these frustrations with Omar. The statement made in this film does not rely on politics or the dismantling of political ideology; it simply explores the human, the “ordinary.”
In the talk which followed the screening hosted by Hanna Flint, Mohtaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel, and Saja Kilani were brought out, and as the audience, we attempted to recreate the 23 minute standing ovation as seen at Venice Film Festival. In this Q&A, Flint asked Hlehel how he felt about tonight, to which he discussed how he is unsure. He expressed discomfort with the fact that a Q&A was being held because he felt “the movie speaks for itself.” In fact, a patron spoke with me after and we both agreed that we could have sat in that cold, quiet, and dark room and grieved; grieved for Hind, for Omar, Rana, Nasreen, Mahdi, and every other Palestinian. Grieved for their grief, for their pain, for their untimely deaths, and for their despair and hope.
I am conflicted in this dilemma. It feels unethical to sit and discuss this film like any other. It feels like a disservice to use our voices to praise a necessary but sad expression of art. However, the self-awareness of these actors made it easier to absolve the guilt, as they are Palestinians who grew up in Palestine. They allow us to witness their tragedy as they witnessed it, as they experienced it, and in doing so, they revisit the intensity and disaster, making them vulnerable on a global scale. However, what was pointed out to us, as the privileged Westerner, was that Hind Rajab is one of many. Her story reflects many of her comrades; her martyrdom is a recurring symbiosis of the Palestinian experience of genocide.
Edited by Hannah Tang, Co-Editor of Film & TV
