Tunisian audiences can at last discover "The Voice of Hind Rajab". The film shook the Venice Film Festival last September. Since 17 September, this gripping work by Kaouther Ben Hania has been showing on screens across the country, carrying into the heart of the Maghreb a story that resonates far beyond its geographical borders.
The reception has lived up to expectations. In Tunisian cinemas, the silence that follows each screening testifies to the film's emotional impact. This 89-minute work turns an individual tragedy into a universal cinematic experience. It is built around the real distress calls made by Hind Rajab. This five-year-old Palestinian girl was killed in January 2024.
A film born of a personal upheaval
The story of this creation begins with a shock. In February 2024, Kaouther Ben Hania was on a promotional tour for "Four Daughters" in Los Angeles. During a stopover, she heard the recordings of Hind Rajab's final calls. The little girl was trapped in a bullet-riddled car. For hours she begged for someone to come and save her.
The discovery overwhelmed the director. It affected her to the point that she immediately abandoned all her other projects. "After listening to the full 70-minute recording, I knew, without any doubt, that I had to give everything up. I had to make this film", she confides. Within a few months, Ben Hania turned that creative urgency into a feature film. In doing so, she proves once again her ability to seize hold of the age at its most searing.
The daring of direct testimony
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" marks a turning point in Ben Hania's filmography. For the first time, she uses authentic recordings as her main creative material. Those 70 minutes of distress calls represent a major artistic challenge. How do you turn raw testimony into a cinematic experience?
The director makes bold formal choices. By her own account, she prioritizes what she doesn't show. "The violence stays off-screen", she explains. "What I wanted was to concentrate on the invisible: the waiting, the fear, the unbearable silence when help does not come." This aesthetic of restraint seems to have made a deep impression on the Venice audience — something she has spoken about in her interviews.
The ovation of nearly 24 minutes received at Venice testifies to that emotional impact. The film broke the festival's applause record. It surpassed even Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth". Some in the audience raised Palestinian flags. The film's team, meanwhile, finished in tears. This exceptional reception confirms the universal reach of a work rooted in one specific tragedy.
Kaouther Ben Hania: the art of turning the intimate into the universal
The art of the universal drawn from the particular
This capacity to transcend the particular is Kaouther Ben Hania's signature. Whether it is Hind Rajab, Olfa Hamrouni, or Sam the Syrian refugee, her characters begin in specific stories. Yet they reveal stakes that go beyond their initial contexts. That alchemy explains why her films resonate around the world: she turns a Palestinian tragedy, a Tunisian family, or a migrant's journey into universal narratives.
Her career traces a steady climb toward ever more assured mastery. Born in a town without a cinema, she forged her eye on Bollywood films watched on VHS. After business studies, she joined La Fémis in Paris. It was there that she developed a unique cinematic language, one that combines aesthetic rigour with political commitment.
"The Man Who Sold His Skin": a modern fable
In 2020, "The Man Who Sold His Skin" already revealed this ability to turn an anecdote into a contemporary fable. The film tells the story of Sam, a Syrian refugee. He agrees to have a work of art tattooed on his back in order to obtain a European visa. Under Ben Hania's camera, this surreal plot becomes a powerful metaphor. It deals with the commodification of bodies, and with art as a way out.
The film's formal originality wins audiences over. Ben Hania develops a polished, almost advertising-like aesthetic that contrasts with the gravity of the subject. This visual irony amplifies the social critique. It also reveals the absurdity of a world where art is worth more than a human life. The 2021 Oscar nomination in the Best International Feature category confirms this artistic success.
"Four Daughters": the invention of a new form
With "Four Daughters" in 2023, Ben Hania pushes formal innovation further still. This hybrid documentary tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian mother whose two eldest daughters joined the ranks of Daesh. To fill their absence, the director calls on professional actresses who reconstruct the key moments of this family tragedy.
This revolutionary approach blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction. "This reality I am filming does not exist outside the film. Which is to say, there are never actors who turn up to act out people's lives", the director explains. This freedom allows her to control the aesthetic dimension while preserving emotional authenticity.
Critical success was immediate. The film won the Œil d'or at Cannes 2023, then the 2024 César for Best Documentary. More than the awards, what stands out is the universal reception. "There is something of the order of the universal running through this film", notes Ben Hania, delighted to see viewers around the world recognise themselves in this Tunisian story.
An aesthetic in the service of emotion
Kaouther Ben Hania's work stands out for its constant search for a beauty that amplifies emotion without ever betraying it. Her cinematic references draw on "Bergman's way of filming faces". In her view, he is "the greatest master of all in this respect". That influence comes through in how she captures her characters' humanity, even in the most extreme situations.
From "Challat of Tunis" in 2014, her first feature film, she developed this singular approach. It blends social realism with a dreamlike dimension. The film explores Tunisian urban mythologies. It already revealed this ability to turn a local chronicle into a universal narrative.
"Zaineb Hates the Snow" (2016) confirms this mastery. This portrait of a little girl faced with her family's move becomes a meditation on exile and childhood. The action unfolds between Tunisia and Canada. Ben Hania's patience shows her willingness to let projects ripen — she filmed for six years before this one took its final form.
A Tunisian voice that carries far
Kaouther Ben Hania represents a new generation of Tunisian filmmakers, freed from the strictures of the old regime. Her films tackle head-on subjects that were long taboo: the condition of women, political violence, fractures of identity. This freedom of tone, won after the 2011 revolution, allows her to explore in depth the transformations of Tunisian society. But her gaze reaches well beyond national borders, revealing global stakes through a local prism.
The impact in Tunisia: a necessary mirror
The Tunisian release of "The Voice of Hind Rajab" carries special weight. Tunisian audiences are discovering a work that takes her artistic signature to heights not yet explored. This international recognition of a Tunisian filmmaker is a source of national pride, but also a challenge.
The film questions our relationship to the suffering of others, our capacity for empathy in the face of distant tragedies. By giving Hind Rajab a voice, Ben Hania reminds us that behind every conflict lie individual stories, children whose calls for help deserve to be heard.
This lesson in humanity resonates particularly in Tunisia, a country that has lived through its own upheavals and understands how fragile social balances can be. The film becomes a mirror for our own questions about justice, solidarity, and collective responsibility.
Towards new creative horizons
Buoyed by this recognition, Kaouther Ben Hania is already preparing her next projects. "After drawing on reality to build contemporary narratives, I want to take the opposite path, that is, to draw on my imagination to write an original science-fiction story", she confides.
This development is part of a broader movement in post-revolution Tunisian cinema. A new generation of directors is emerging — Ala Eddine Slim with "The Last of Us", Leyla Bouzid with "As I Open My Eyes", Mehdi Barsaoui with "A Son". Their work ranges from the intimate thriller to the social drama.
The question of distribution is becoming crucial. International platforms such as Netflix are beginning to take an interest in Maghreb productions. The challenge, however, remains local visibility. How do you make sure "The Voice of Hind Rajab" reaches Tunisian audiences as much as European festivals? This complex equation will decide the future of a national cinema that aspires to shine abroad without losing its identity.
While we wait for those future works, Ben Hania's film confirms the creative vitality of Tunisia. It bears witness to a cinema that knows how to speak to the world without disowning its origins, carried by voices that turn current events into lasting art.
