AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We spend the rest of the hour looking at two of the five films on Israel and Palestine that have been shortlisted for this year’s Academy Awards. We first go to The Voice of Hind Rajab, the critically acclaimed docudrama about the 6-year-old Palestinian girl whose killing by Israeli forces in Gaza in January 2024 reverberated around the world. The film’s shortlisted for the 2026 Oscars in best international feature film category. It incorporates the real audio recordings of phone calls from little Hind as she was trapped under Israeli fire for hours, pleading with Palestine Red Crescent dispatchers, who were dozens of miles away from Gaza in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, pleading with them to be rescued from a car where her aunt, uncle and four cousins lay dead.

It was January 29th, 2024. Israeli forces had ordered the evacuation of Gaza City’s neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, so Hind’s aunt and uncle attempted to flee the city with Hind and her four cousins. But before the family could escape, their car came under fire by Israeli soldiers outside a gas station.

This is the trailer for The Voice of Hind Rajab.

RED CRESCENT DISPATCHER: [translated] You have to stop the bleeding.

RANA HASSAN FAQIH: [played by Saja Kilani] [translated] An ambulance is on its way.

ON-SCREEN TEXT: Based on real events.

OMAR AL-QAM: [played by Motaz Malhees] [translated] Red Crescent emergency room, Ramallah. This is Omar. How can I help you?

ON-SCREEN TEXT: The voices on the phone are real.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] Hello?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] I’m scared. They’re shooting. Come get me, please.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] What’s your name?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Hind Rajab Hamada. Please, don’t leave me. I’m all alone.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] Mahdi, I need an ambulance.

MAHDI ALJAMAL: [played by Amer Hlehel] [translated] We need to guarantee them a safe route.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] She doesn’t have time!

HIND RAJAB: [translated] The tanks are here! They’re shooting at me!

MAHDI ALJAMAL: [translated] See all these people? We’ve lost them all. Without coordination, those eight minutes can cost them their lives, Omar.

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Please, come.

OMAR AL-QAM: They are shooting at a car with a little girl inside. Can you imagine that? So do something!

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Save me.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] Are you in preschool?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] I’m in the butterfly class.

OMAR AL-QAM: Hind?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Yes?

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] We’re coming to get you.

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Please don’t leave me. I’m afraid of the dark.

RANA HASSAN FAQIH: [translated] There’s still some light left. We still have some time.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for The Voice of Hind Rajab. As the Red Crescent dispatchers speak with Hind, colleagues are trying to get an ambulance to her, which require coordination with and approval by Israeli authorities. The Palestine Red Crescent Society later said Israeli forces also targeted its ambulance as it arrived on the scene. The emergency workers, Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, had found their way to Hind but were killed by Israeli forces just yards away from Hind’s family car. The bullet-riddled vehicle was found with more than 300 holes from Israeli fire, according to Forensic Architecture.

For more, we’re joined by Kaouther Ben Hania, the Academy Award-nominated Tunisian filmmaker and the director of The Voice of Hind Rajab. The film received a record-breaking 23-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere last year. Kaouther’s other films include the Oscar-nominated Four Daughters and The Man Who Sold His Skin.

Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s an honor to have you with us.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Tunisia’s official entry into the Oscars. You’d actually filmed this in Tunisia, though it is — and so, the people, except for Hind’s voice, are actors who are playing the Red Crescent workers. Explain why you did this, when you did it.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: It started with the voice of Hind Rajab, obviously, because I heard a small extract on internet published at the time by the Red Crescent, Palestinian Red Crescent, during those 12 days, you know, of siege, when they had no news from their paramedic and from Hind, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: This was after they were killed.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Nobody knew — yeah, after the paramedic killed. But Hind, nobody knows, you know, what happened to her, but she was killed. But they have to wait 12 days.

So, when I heard her voice, you know, this is — I was in a period asking myself about: What does it mean to tell stories when the unthinkable is happening? You know? I was glued to the news, following what was happening in Gaza. And for me, it was very important to take this voice out of the social media busyness and forgetness and amnesia, and to put it in a cinematic form where people can sit and listen, because when you hear her voice, you can’t unhear it. At least for me, it haunted me, and I was — I had this feeling of helplessness. And I thought, “I hate it when I feel helpless. What can I do?” I can do movies, you know? So I did this movie to honor her voice, but also to tell this incredible story of those heroes, you know, trying to save lives in impossible conditions.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe what it was like on the set. I mean, you have these actors, who are also human beings, and they are playing the Red Crescent workers. You had the transcripts. You also had them talking to each other — 

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — and writing to each other in the office in Ramallah. They’re trying to coordinate to get her help. The ambulance was, what, like eight minutes away.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Eight minutes away, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: But there was also the fighting of if — even if they get approval from the Israelis. Explain the difference between approval and what it meant to get the green light to know that these ambulance workers wouldn’t be killed on their way to her.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yeah. I mean, you know, I did this choice to have actors, because I needed to do this movie in the present tense, to go back when — this moment when Hind was alive, and, as you say, the ambulance was eight minutes away, so it was possible to save her, you know? The access was denied. Those paramedics were killed. And I remember, when I started working on this movie, everything was in the recording. It’s a movie started with the sound, you know? So you have all the — the killing of Layan, the cousin, the 15-year-old, in the —

AMY GOODMAN: She was the one who first called the Red Crescent.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: She was 15. What’s astounding is that when she’s killed with her family, little Hind is then describing everything she sees.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: She’s 6.

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yeah, exactly. She’s not even 6, you know? She’s younger than 6.

And then, we have in the recording the voice of Yusuf Zeino talking to Mahdi and saying, “Here, the ambulance. Here, the car. Here she is,” you know? So, he was meters away from the car, and then we hear the bombing. So, for me, the main idea in the beginning was to explain why you can’t send an ambulance eight minutes away, you know? Because, you know, for me, it’s completely insane. You know, we have a child begging for life. So, then, when I talked to the real Red Crescent person, they explained to me the system of coordination.

AMY GOODMAN: Quote, “coordination.”

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yeah, exactly, and how they did everything, you know, in their power to respect those opposed rules, those rules done, you know, like not to be respected. Those rules were not respected by the Israeli army, because they did everything by the book, they sent the ambulance, and the ambulance was bombarded.

And at this moment, since I did this movie with this form, where actors are portraying real people, I knew for the audience that I need to have a clear contract. Those are actors, and even actors can’t act this, you know, story. And this is why in the movie you have them stopping acting by moments, you know, and listening to their perspective character they are portraying, talking to Hind. You know, ’til this incredible moment, I remember when I heard it, I said, “This is not true,” when they bombarded the ambulance coming to rescue little Hind. It was true. So, for me, it was very important at this point to go to something archival documentary. And we see in the movie that we have the actors acting, but at the same time, I had a lot of chance to have an archive of this moment, because one of their colleagues in the Red Crescent filmed them. So, I did this scene to go out of, you know, the acting, to go to the archival moment.

AMY GOODMAN: And in the office, in the Ramallah Red Crescent office, are the pictures of the past dead ambulance and paramedics —

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — to remind them how dangerous it is, even for them. I want to end with this clip of Voice of Hind Rajab, where we hear two Palestine Red Crescent dispatchers in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank — again, they are actors — who answer Hind Rajab’s call — the call is real — as she pleads to be rescued.

OMAR AL-QAM: [played by Motaz Malhees] [translated] What is your name?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] There’s no one with me.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] What’s your name?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] There’s no one with me.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] I can’t hear your name. I’m Omar. What’s your name?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] My name is Hanood.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] What’s your name?

HIND RAJAB: Hanood.

OMAR AL-QAM: Hanood?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Come get me.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] And your sister’s name?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Come get me!

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] Where’s your sister? I will, but where’s your sister?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] I don’t have one.

OMAR AL-QAM: Mahdi?

MAHDI ALJAMAL: [played by Amer Hlehel] [translated] Yes, Omar.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] A 6-year-old girl is still hidden in the car.

MAHDI ALJAMAL: [translated] A 6-year-old girl in the car? And the others?

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] The others, I don’t know. She says she’s alone. She’s on the line with me.

MAHDI ALJAMAL: [translated] Who’s on the line with you?

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] The girl.

MAHDI ALJAMAL: [translated] Is she a member of the Hamada family?

RANA HASSAN FAQIH: [played by Saja Kilani] [translated] Ask her.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] Hanood? What’s your full name?

HIND RAJAB: Hind Rajab Hamada.

OMAR AL-QAM: Hind Rajab Hamada? [translated] OK.

UNIDENTIFIED: Rana?

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] Hide under the seat. Don’t let anyone see you.

RANA HASSAN FAQIH: [translated] Stay with her.

OMAR AL-QAM: [translated] OK?

HIND RAJAB: [translated] Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Another clip from The Voice of Hind Rajab. You got the blessing of Hind’s mother, who was not in the car, to do this film?

KAOUTHER BEN HANIA: Yeah, it was one of the first things I did, before even taking the decision to make this movie, because it’s her daughter, and I need her approval — not only her approval, but also her blessing. So I called her. And she was, at the time, still in Gaza. Thank God, she’d been evacuated. And she was mourning, but also she was moving from one house to another. She couldn’t — you know. But she’s, for me, the example of resilience. And she told me, “My daughter is not the only child killed this way in Gaza. I want justice for my daughter. And if your movie can help, please do it.” And for me, it was, you know, very important to do this movie.

And I want just to say that we met recently with Hind’s mother at Doha Film Festival. They invited the four real Red Crescent employees with my actors, and we gathered around Hind’s mother. And she was so — feeling so — how to say? A lot of courage, because she was meeting audience after every screening. And for her, it was like a funeral, you know, because she didn’t have a proper funeral for her daughter in Gaza at the time. So, in every screening, she arrives when the credit roll to talk with the audience and to see that they are sharing her pain.

AMY GOODMAN: Kaouther Ben Hania, I want to thank you so much for being with us, the renowned filmmaker, the director of The Voice of Hind Rajab, up for the best international feature film, the Academy Awards. It’s opening at Film Forum tonight and then moving on to Los Angeles and beyond in the United States.

Next up, we look at another film shortlisted for an Academy Award, this one for best documentary feature. It’s called Holding Liat, about former Israeli hostage Liat Atzili, who will join us in the studio with the film’s director. These are films, and they are real life. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: Nora Brown, performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.