“When people say our film is too political, what they might really mean is too truthful,” says Jordanian Palestinian Canadian actor Saja Kilani of The Voice Of Hind Rajab, the powerful new film bringing the true story of a six-year-old’s plea for life in Gaza to screens worldwide.
In January 2024, six-year-old Hind sat trapped in a car surrounded by the bodies of her family, after they came under gunfire and bombing in Gaza. She placed a desperate phone call to Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers, who scrambled to coordinate a rescue attempt. For hours, her small voice held the line, pleading for help that could not break through the violence outside. When an ambulance finally reached her, both the rescue crew and Hind were killed.
Hind’s life was brutally taken from her, but her voice and her story continued to echo around the world when the recordings of her horrifying last few hours were released on social media. And Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania refused to allow that voice to disappear into the noise of our ongoing news cycles.
The result: this powerful hybrid film, The Voice Of Hind Rajab, which transforms documented reality into cinematic testimony, situating the audience inside the Red Crescent call centre as operators fight to save a child they can hear but not reach. Shot entirely in sequence and using the audio of Hind’s real voice during those calls, the film reframes an unbearable tragedy as an act of witness and a commitment to hold space for Hind’s final words.
In an exclusive conversation for Service95, Saja – who plays Rana, the main operator on the line with Hind in the film – sits down with Sudanese British filmmaker Basma Khalifa, bound by a mutual belief in work rooted in culture and humanity, for an open conversation.
The pair discuss what happened when Saja met the real Rana, the urgent need for films like this to reach audiences from all backgrounds and the importance of creating work that inspires hope even in moments of profound hopelessness. Above all, they reflect on ensuring that lives like Hind’s are not lost in vain – that her legacy is carried, honoured and heard by the world.
When it premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year, the film made global headlines for its extraordinary 24-minute standing ovation, where it also won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize. Yet, in the days leading up to its debut, there were doubts it would even be allowed to screen, dismissed by some as “too political”. But the film posed its own defiant question: how political can the voice of a six-year-old child be?
“Humanity is not too political,” says Saja in our interview, which you can watch below. “Because this film tackles a human story – a child, a six-year-old – you don’t need to be on any side of politics. You just need to be human. This film was a constant reminder of the absence of our humanity. Yet [on set] I felt like it was being reunited, like we were all together saying that phrase: humanity is not too political. We all have humanity inside of us, we just need to awaken it.”
As The Voice Of Hind Rajab continues to be released around the globe, the film stands as a stark reminder of cinema’s ability to carry collective memory, and of our shared responsibility in telling stories that matter.
Watch Saja and Basma’s full conversation on Service95’s YouTube channel here.
The Voice Of Hind Rajab is out in cinemas across the UK and Ireland now, and has been released in areas across Europe, the US and Africa. It will also be released across Germany and Brazil in January 2026
