Kolkata: The pindrop silence followed by sniffles post the screening of Kaouther Ben Hania's ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab' at the 31st Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) was starkly opposed to the 25 minutes of its standing ovation the docudrama received at the Venice Film Festival this Sept.
But this reaction didn't surprise one of its executive producers — Lina Chaabane Menzli — who is part of the international jury of KIFF's top award. She accepts the compliment from many viewers who say if there is just one film to watch at KIFF, it has to be this.
Watching the real audio recording of a terrified five-year-old Palestinian girl phoning for help in Gaza before her death, with actors playing the helpless emergency responders on the other end of the line left many so numb that they couldn't watch any other movie on the same day.
They regarded this as the centrepiece of the festival's newly launched ‘Beyond Borders: Displacement, Migration...' segment.
Anticipation runs high as the film prepares for its final screening at Nandan on KIFF's closing day. Word has spread — this isn't merely a film, it's an experience that stays long after the lights dim. While those who have watched it call it "unbearably moving", many others don't want to miss what could be the festival's most defining moment — when cinema, conscience, and humanity meet in a single voice that still echoes: "Please save me".
The docudrama has won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice. Tunisia's Oscar contender this year reconstructs the real-life 2024 tragedy through the final recorded phone calls between Hind Rajab - trapped in a car in Gaza along with dead relatives - and the Red Crescent workers who tried negotiate international protocol to send her a rescue ambulance before they, too, were killed on Jan 29, 2024.
The Tunisian director, whose two previous films — ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin' and ‘Four Daughters' — were Oscar nominated — couldn't come to Kolkata to attend this screening. "She is extraordinary for capturing things that are very important. All her films are made from something to talk about in the current situation. We only heard recordings of a few words of Hind Rajab who said ‘please save me, please save me'. Kaouther called the Red Crescent in Ramallah.
They know her and she got access to the entire conversation," Menzli said.