Q&A WITH KAOUTHER BEN HANIA
Kaouther Ben Hania is a Paris-based Tunisian filmmaker. She has been directing documentaries and docu-fictions since the early ‘00s. Her films have screened at IDFA, Cannes, and Venice. Her latest film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, won the Grand Jury Prize at the latter film festival in 2025. It also earned Ben Hania her second Academy Award nomination, following the success of Four Daughters, which also happened to win Best Documentary Film at the 2024 César Awards. Her films are formally rigorous and politically direct, as is the case with The Voice of Hind Rajab, which uses the real-life recording of the eponymous six-year-old’s phone call to a humanitarian relief center as she sustains Israeli firepower over multiple hours to indict the ongoing violence in Gaza.
The Voice of Hind Rajab is now in theaters across the world.
Q. While your background is in documentary filmmaking, The Voice of Hind Rajab is a more traditional narrative. What motivated you to take this approach when it came to telling this story?
A. I have always been interested in the frontier between documentary and fiction, because when you’re making a film you don’t notice that frontier. It’s like if you are hiking between the United States and Canada — you don’t notice the frontier.
Now, this story started with a voice — a recorded voice. When you think of a real, recorded document, you automatically think documentary. Investigations were done on the murder of Hind Rajab by organizations like Forensic Architecture, The Washington Post, and Al Jazeera. They all explained what happened, but I didn’t just want to make a movie about what had happened. I wanted to make a movie that showed what had happened, but also what it meant for us, the audience. I wanted to make the audience a witness to what had happened.
My question was, “What more can cinema bring to the table with regards to this story?” Well, cinema can create empathy. It can make you feel what it’s like to hear a child pleading for her life, or what it’s like when your colleagues are killed. These are cruel experiences, but that’s because what happened was very, very cruel. I needed to make a movie where the audience bears witness. I needed to make something that was not in the past, but about what is still happening. I need to make a movie about the present. My question became, “How do you bring the present tense into cinema?”
Q. You have been in touch with Hind’s mother and the workers at the Red Crescent Society since you started working on this project. What has it meant for them seeing the final film?
A. When we finished filming, the first people I wanted to show the movie to in order to get feedback were the workers at the Red Crescent Society and Hind Rajab’s mother. We organized a screening for the workers in Ramallah. They have a big, beautiful screening room in their offices. It was very emotional for them, because the story had impacted them very deeply.
Mahdi, the coordinating officer that we see in the film, resigned in real life after losing his colleagues Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, who were bombarded by the Israelis. For all of them, the story was a living trauma. They watched the movie and loved it, but that first screening was not easy for them. They needed to watch it again, because since they were crying they couldn’t follow the movie.
Hind’s mother did not want to watch the movie. She told me that she could not even hear the recording, which was all over the Internet. She told me that if I needed feedback, I should show it to her brother. So, we showed the movie to her brother. Although she still will not watch the movie, Hind’s mother always joins us at festivals to meet the audience. For her, seeing the effect her daughter’s story has on audiences is very consoling.
When she was in Gaza and lost her daughter, she couldn’t even hold a proper funeral for her. When I first called her and offered my condolences, she told me that because she was in Gaza, where everyone is in survival mode, people did not have the time to console one another. Hearing someone tell her, “I feel and see your pain,” was very important for her. This is what happens with the audiences too. She told me, “It was like those people are seeing my pain and consoling me. I lost my daughter and I need a lot of courage to survive in this world. This is helping in a way.”
Q. The Voice of Hind Rajab takes place entirely inside the Red Crescent Society call center — an open-plan office replete with glass partitions and reflective computer screens. How did this space influence the film’s visual style?
A. When you have a movie set in one location, you have to do something with the set. I noticed that with all of the transparency, all of their fragility was exposed. I found that very touching, because it meant that the workers could not hide from one another.
Q. What is the last film you saw and loved?
A. The Perfect Neighbor.
Q. Where have you found inspiration that people might not necessarily expect?
A. I find inspiration in everything. In life, on social media, in movies.
Q. Where is your favorite place to watch movies?
A. It depends. There are movies that require the collective experience, and then there are others where I prefer to be alone. So, sometimes the cinema. Sometimes, my home.
Q. If you could program one film on our platform, which one would you choose and why?
A. Kiarostami’s Close-Up, because it was an aesthetic shock for me. It informed my desire to become a filmmaker by presenting me with a new, bold proposal in cinema, both in terms of form and storytelling. It has personally impacted how I make cinema.
Q. What image would you like to end this interview with?
A. The last image from The Voice of Hind Rajab, of this little child playing by the sea of Gaza.
