Hollywood luminaries Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuaron and Jonathan Glazer are among heavyweights to get behind Gaza drama The Voice Of Hind Rajab ahead of its Venice Film Festival world premiere, Deadline has learned.
The Oscar winners and Oscar nominee Mara have joined the Tunisian project as executive producers after being impressed by a recent cut of the film. The film’s end credits reveal that Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner’s Plan B get an In Association credit, as does the UK’s Film4 and Middle East studio MBC.
Among other high-profile public figures to have joined the project as exec producers are journalist turned producer Jemima Khan, Canadian businessman and former Lionsgate founder Frank Giustra, and jewelry designer and socialite Sabine Getty. CAA’s Maha Dakhil gets a ‘producers wish to thank’ credit.
The Voice Of Hind Rajab, which heralds from acclaimed Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, is expected to be one of the most powerful and moving films to debut on the Lido where it unspools next week.
The film tells the story of a young Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year along with six of her family members. Rajab and her family had been fleeing Gaza City when their vehicle was shelled, killing her uncle, aunt, and three cousins. Rajab and another cousin initially survived and contacted the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) by phone from the car seeking aid. The car was later found with Rajab and the paramedics who had come to help all dead. The incident sparked global protests, including at Columbia University, where students renamed Hamilton Hall as Hind’s Hall.
The in-demand film, which includes the real audio of Hind Rajab before her death, will also play at Toronto, San Sebastian, Busan and London film festivals this fall.
Director Ben Hania has said of the project: “The heart of this film is something very simple, and very hard to live with. I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes. That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us. This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief. I believe that fiction (especially when it draws from verified, painful, real events) is cinema’s most powerful tool. More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling. Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia.”
Venice head Alberto Barbera has previously said he believes the film will be among those to “most impress audiences and critics” at the festival, which gets underway today.
Producers are Ben Hania’s regular collaborator Nadim Cheikhrouha as well as Navalny producer Odessa Rae and Jonathan Glazer collaborator James Wilson (The Zone Of Interest). The cast features Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees Clara Khoury and Amer Hlehel. Sales are handled by The Party Film Sales and CAA.
Producer Cheikhrouha told us: “The film needed to made urgently so it came out it into the world without delay, so financing was an ongoing process throughout all stages. Myself and Odessa were financing as the film was being prepped, shot, and post-produced. Sunnyland, Jemima Khan, Geralyn Dreyfous, Jorie Graham, Amed Khan, Rambourg, Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Watermelon [the film’s U.S. distributor], Sawsan Asfari, 1888 Films, DFI, and Barc Productions all came on when there first was a script. Film4, to whom Jim brought it, and MBC boarded just after”.
Ben Hania was Oscar-nominated in the International Film category for 2020 movie The Man Who Sold His Skin and was again nommed last year in the Documentary section with Four Daughters. The filmmaker’s latest must have a strong shot at representing Tunisia at the Oscars next year.
As we’ve reported, this year’s Venice Film Festival will have a political flavor with events taking place in support of Gaza both on opening day and the first Saturday.
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