The director of a new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza told the Venice Film Festival Wednesday she wanted to give "a voice and a face" to victims.
"We've seen that the narrative all around the world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media, and I think this is so dehumanising," Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania told journalists ahead of the world premiere of "The Voice of Hind Rajab".
"And that's why cinema, art, and every kind of expression is very important to give those people a voice and a face."
Gaza has been front and centre at the prestigious event in Venice after a group of filmmakers and others called on festival organisers to more forcefully condemn the war.
Ben Hania's film is one of 21 in the running for the Golden Lion prize.
It tells the true story of the girl who pleaded with emergency services to come and rescue her after Israeli forces killed the rest of her family in their car while evacuating from Gaza in January 2024.
The movie uses the actual audio from phone calls Hind made with the Red Crescent.
"This movie was very important for me because when I heard the first time the voice of Hind Rajab, there was something more than her voice," said Ben Hania.
"It was the very voice of Gaza asking for help and nobody could enter," she added.
"It was like a kind of strong desire and the feeling of anger and helplessness that gave birth to this movie."
Ben Hania was the first filmmaker to represent Tunisia at the Academy Awards in 2021.
'Stop the war'
Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera has promised it will be one of the films that will "have the biggest impact on audiences and critics".
"I'm not sure how people are going to cope," one insider who worked on the movie told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
Rajab's mother said she hoped that the film would help end the nearly two-year-long war, which has cost the lives of at least 63,633 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza that the United Nations deems reliable.
"I hope this film will help stop this destructive war and save the other children of Gaza," Wissam Hamada told AFP by phone from devastated, famine-hit Gaza City where she lives with her five-year-old son.
"The whole world has left us to die, to go hungry, to live in fear and to be forcibly displaced without doing anything. It's a huge betrayal," she added.
The Israeli military said the circumstances of Rajab's death were "still being reviewed", without giving further details.
It has never announced a formal investigation into the case.
Tensions
The war in Gaza has regularly caused tension in the cinema world since Israel launched its offensive in October 2023 following an attack by Palestinian group Hamas which left 1,219 people dead, most of them civilians.
"The Voice of Hind Rajab" has attracted Pitt, Phoenix and "The Zone of Interest" director Jonathan Glazer, who have lent their support as executive producers.
Glazer denounced Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as he accepted his Oscar for best director for Holocaust drama "The Zone of Interest" in 2024.
Around 370 actors and directors signed an open letter during the Cannes film festival in May saying they were "ashamed" of their industry's "passivity" about the war, including Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche.
Others have avoided taking a clear position.
This year's Venice jury president, Alexander Payne ("The Holdovers", "Sideways") said he was "unprepared" to answer a question about his views on the war last week, adding he was "here to judge and talk about cinema".
Other movies premiering on Wednesday in Venice include star-packed "In the Hand of Dante" by Julian Schnabel, a gangster story set between New York and Italy about the theft of the original manuscript of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy".
It features Oscar Isaac in the lead role alongside Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino.