A harrowing film that premiered at the Venice Film Festival Wednesday about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year gives a “voice and face” to Palestinian victims of the war, its director said.

“The Voice of Hind Rajab”, a dramatic portrayal of real events from January 2024, left many journalists sobbing at the first press screenings in Venice Wednesday.

Dressed all in black, Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania joined her cast on the red carpet holding a photograph of a smiling Hind Rajab, whose desperate pleas to be rescued form the basis of the film.

“We see that the narrative all around world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media,” Ben Hania told journalists.

“And I think this is so dehumanising, and that’s why cinema, art a

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