By Lynn Rusk

 

LONDON, 15 January. - (ANA)- A Palestinian actor said he feared how Palestinians would react while he was making the Gaza docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab.

 

London-based Motaz Malhees portrays Omar Alqam, a Palestine Red Crescent Society worker who attempts to rescue a five-year-old girl from a bullet-riddled car in Gaza City in January 2024.

 

The movie, directed by Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania, won the Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival and has been longlisted for the 2026 Bafta Film Awards for best director and film not in the English language.

 

The film is based on true events and uses the real audio from Hind Rajab’s call to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

 

Speaking at a screening in London, Malhees said: “I was scared of how my people would react, because they could have reacted very differently. But they felt proud, proud to see that this was happening.

 

“I was afraid of the reaction, and I would have accepted it whatever it was. I would have understood it. The fact that people are happy we made this film is something I’m truly grateful for.”

 

Malhees stars alongside Jordanian-Palestinian-Canadian actress Saja Kilani, Palestinian actor Amer Hlehel and Palestinian-American actress Clara Khoury.

 

The 34-year-old actor said Ben Hania did not allow the cast to listen to the recordings in full while preparing for their roles, as it would have been too traumatic.

 

“You remember those two minutes that circulated on the internet, hearing a five-year-old girl begging the world to rescue her and we all let her down. This is the reality,” said Malhees.

 

“I didn’t hear the full recordings. I asked, but the director refused and she was 100% right.

 

“She said she would make us hear it, but only in small parts, scene by scene.

 

“It’s too overwhelming to listen to the full recordings before filming; it’s not something you can just sit down and experience all at once.”

 

He added: “I really wanted to hear it to understand more, but I trusted her, and I understood on set why she made that choice. She said, with everything we were already experiencing, watching a live genocide and the depression it caused and hearing it all at once would have been too much.

 

Malhees, who grew up in Jenin, a city in the West Bank, said making the film evoked his own childhood traumas.

 

“It reminded me so much of my childhood,” he said.

 

“I grew up in Jenin and in 2002 there was a massive invasion in my city. You could see the army everywhere, in the sky and on the ground.

 

“I was 10-years-old and I felt like we were the next target, that the next rocket could hit my house.

 

“For me, working on this film brought me back to my childhood. It made me realise how much trauma I had carried without ever really sitting with it. In a way, this film became a mirror for me.”

 

The Voice of Hind Rajab will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on Friday.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/15 January 2026 - - -