Nominated for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming 2026 Oscars, The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania, 2025) was one of the most acclaimed films at the Venice Biennale. Isadora García Avis, who teaches audiovisual narrative in the Faculty of Communication Sciences, analyses the film in The Conversation and highlights its deep emotional resonance.

The Voice of Hind Rajab reconstructs the true story of Hind Rajab Hamada, a five‑year‑old Palestinian girl who was killed in Gaza in January 2024 following an attack on the vehicle in which she was travelling with several relatives. During her final hours, she remained in telephone contact with volunteers from the Red Crescent movement who attempted to organise her rescue.

The era of information overload

“In today’s media landscape, a tragic event may shock us at a particular moment but fall into oblivion only days later,” Isadora García Avis explains. “When we turn a real event into an audiovisual narrative, dramatising it with tools typical of fiction, the emotional impact reaches viewers differently,” she argues. She highlights the film’s ability to engage audiences through the structural elements of cinematic storytelling, with turning points and a “devastating final climax”.

Narrative techniques for recreating real events

García Avis emphasises one of the film’s most significant creative decisions: the integration of the girl’s real audio recordings within the fictional reconstruction. This hybridisation of reality and representation, she explains, “establishes an immediate connection between the viewer and the story”. She notes that, for the director herself, the Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, “it was a moral obligation to honour her voice”. 

The lecturer also highlights the inclusion of the voices of real volunteers interwoven with those of actors who appear in the film. “At one point, the camera lens shifts focus away from the actors and the faces of the real volunteers appear on the mobile phone screen. This formal decision, at a moment of maximum dramatic tension, reminds us that this is a real story,” she observes.

The echo of the voice of Hind

In its bid for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, and as part of World Cinema Day, celebrated every second Saturday in February, Isadora García Avis, an expert in audiovisual narrative at UIC Barcelona, highlights the “deep emotional connection” achieved by The Voice of Hind Rajab through its cinematic storytelling. “Hind ceases to be a mere statistic and the echo of her voice continues to resonate around the world,” she concludes.