When I was actively watching Kaouther Ben Hania’s devastating The Voice of Hind Rajab (read review), it reminded me Alejandro González Iñárritu’s short film contribution in 11′09″01 September 11 – both oeuvres make us spend a moment on the phone hearing suffering. A harrowing piece of docu-fiction the distress of a six-year-old girl, trapped with her deceased family in a car under Israeli fire, and the Palestinian Red Crescent dispatchers desperately trying to save her makes for urgent cinema and seconds as a document that reminds us of the thousands of victims who endured the same fate.
Ben Hania has been on film festival tour since winning the Silver Lion in Venice and it was at the Doha Film Festival where the Tunisian filmmaker was reunited with Hind’s mom. I had the opportunity to pose a pair of questions to to her, one of which focused directly on her methodology (her four players Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Clara Khoury, and Amer Hlehel met the real workers), and if her current working mode is the type where the design and the timing of one film then informs the next project – after Four Daughters and The Voice of Hind Rajab she moved into Mimesis. Willa releases The Voice of Hind Rajab in Los Angeles and NYC on December 17th.
