Inaugural Doha Film Festival Opens On Emotional Note With ‘The Voice Of Hind Rajab’ As Girl’s Mother Introduces Gaza Drama

Qatar’s inaugural Doha Film Festival opened on an emotional note on Thursday with the MENA premiere of Kaouther Ben Attia’s Gaza drama The Voice Of Hind Rejab introduced by the bereaved mother of the girl at the heart of the film

The harrowing docudrama revolves around the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza on January 29, 2024, when the car she was travelling in with her uncle, aunt and three cousins was shot at by Israeli military as they attempted to flee to the south of the Palestinian territory.

The film was inspired and is constructed around a real audio recording of the girl begging for help over several hours as she spoke to dispatchers at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Ramallah in the West Bank.

“Hind is gone, but her voice still wakes me up every dawn,” Hind Rajab’s mother Wissam Hamada told the audience ahead of Doha the screening.

“My message is not just words; it’s the pain of a mother who lost her daughter, and then found in her universal love a message from God, and understood that my role is to carry the voice of the children of Gaza to the world, the children who live in the heart of war, in darkness, deprived of their most basic rights, of their dreams that are snatched away before they grow up.”

Hamada, who was evacuated from Gaza in September after protracted negotiations with Israel, took to the stage alongside director Ben Hania and cast members Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Clara Khoury and Amer Hlehel.

Representatives of the Red Crescent Society and the real-life staff members whose struggle to save Hind Rajab is retold in the film were also in the audience.

Ben Hania thanked the Doha Film Festival for reuniting everyone involved in the film in same time for the first time.

Backed by a roster of Hollywood A-listers including Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuaron and Jonathan Glazer, The Voice of Hind Rajab world premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival in early September where it received a record 23 minute and 50 seconds standing ovation.

Hamada did not stay for the screening of the film in Doha explaining she would believed she would never have the strength to watch the film.

Running until November, the new Doha Film Festival will screen 97 films from 62 countries including four World Premieres and 49 Middle East and North Africa Premieres.

The new event is spearheaded by the Doha Film Institute (DFI) and builds on its family focused Ajyal film festival, which ran from 2013 to 2024, and also coincides with the body’s milestone 15th anniversary. Many of the films – such as The Voice of Hind Rajab – have been supported by the institute.

“This is a milestone year for Doha Film Institute – 15 years of commitment to a vision that has now become a reality,” said DFI CEO and festival director Fatma Hassan Alremaihi. “DFI is more than an institution shaping the global film industry, it is a promise that every voice matters and that art will always have a home in Qatar,” she continued.

“DFI has established the golden age of Arab cinema as an essential chapter in the world’s collective story, where long-term commitment meets long-term impact. As we turn a new page with Doha Film Festival, we are poised and ready to write the next chapters of our journey to build a global community coming together in dialogue to shape a shared future rooted in purpose and possibility.”

Thursday’s ceremony also saw the honoring of Syrian actor Jamal Soliman and Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani with the Doha Film Festival 2025 Creative Excellence Award for their outstanding artistic contribution to storytelling. 

The program continues on Friday with MENA premieres for Blue Heron, My Father and Qaddafi and The Christophers, the latter in the presence of director Steven Soderbergh and the film’s star Michaela Coel.

Further guests expected at the festival include American comedians and actor Ramy Youssef and Mo Amer and Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani as well as Turkey’s Engin Altan Duzyatan, Kuwait’s Jassim Al Nabhan, Egypt’s Dorra Zarrouk and Palestinian singer-songwriter and rapper Saint Levant Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan and British Nigerian photographer Misan Harriman.