VENICE: At its premiere, a powerful new Gaza film at the Venice Film Festival sparked 23 minutes of sustained applause. But the next day hate emails flooded in, the director said on Friday.

French-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is a strong contender for the festival’s Golden Lion, to be awarded on Saturday.

It has already garnered the support of famous Hollywood names attached as executive producers.

Between Wednesday night, after the film’s premiere, and Thursday, “my producers, including the well-known American na­mes Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix, had their mailboxes flooded with thousands and thousands” of intimidating mess­ages”, Ben Hania said.

The same message, sent over and over, was “super intimidating”, she added.

The film covers the last minutes of the life of a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli fire last year while trying to escape Gaza with her family. It uses real-life recordings of the desperate telephone calls she made to the Red Crescent rescue service.

Ben Hania procured the audio from the Red Crescent _ with the permission of Hind Rajab’s mother _ but employed actors to portray the emergency workers who struggled to coordinate her rescue as Israeli tanks got ever closer.

The director has said the dramatisation is “very close to what they experienced”.

Ben Hania said that, after hearing about Hind Rajab’s death in January last year, she felt “a lot of anger, a lot of despair, but also a sense of `What can I do?’”

Cast members told a press conference they felt it their “duty” to make the film.

Regardless, “I didn’t make this film to keep people comfortable in their seats,” Ben Hania said.

The film received strong reviews, with critics citing its emotionally devastating audio recordings, although some pointed to a moral grey area in their use.

The Guardian said that, with her film, Ben Hania was “grabbing one of the most relevant issues of our time with both hands and finding a way to thrust it under our noses”.

The movie, which will be released in Tunisia later this month, does not yet have a US distributor. Tunisia has already chosen the film as its entry for the Academy Awards.

Next up for the film is the Toronto International Film Festival, then festivals in London, San Sebastian (Spain) and Busan (South Korea).

The Venice premiere, the festival circuit, and a potential run for the Oscars, is “very important”, Ben Hania said.

“For a film like this, it allows enormous visibility. And I want the film to be seen a little bit everywhere in the world.”

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2025