Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix back Hind Rajab film as producers ahead of Venice debut

Oscar-nominated director Kaouther Ben Hania's Gaza-set feature is competing for the main prize at the Venice Film Festival

Hollywood stars Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara have joined Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer and Alfonso Cuaron as executive producers of The Voice of Hind Rajab ahead of its Venice Film Festival debut.

Directed by Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, the film dramatises the final hours of five-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli fire in January 2024 after being stranded in a car with her dead relatives in Gaza.

Co-produced by Pitt's Plan B, Saudi giant MBC and the UK's Film4, the Oscar heavyweights are not the only high-profile names who appear in the film's end credits, as per Deadline. Film producer Jemima Khan, jewellery designer Sabine Getty and Lionsgate Entertainment founder Frank Giustra are also credited as producers.

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Glazer, who won the Best International Feature Oscar last year for The Zone of Interest, which is set during the Holocaust, made headlines when he received praise and criticism for his acceptance speech.

“Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst. It shaped all of our pasts and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation that has led to conflict for so many innocent people," he said.

Branded an anti-Semite by some, Glazer received support from more than 150 Jewish Hollywood figures – including Phoenix – who wrote an open letter denouncing those who criticised him.

"Attacks on Glazer are a dangerous distraction from Israel’s escalating military campaign, which has already killed over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza and brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation," they wrote.

Hind Rajab was killed by Israeli fire in January 2024 after being stranded in a car with her dead relatives in Gaza. AFP

The Voice of Hind Rajab, which is competing for the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival, is set to premiere on September 3. The film uses real audio recordings as a central narrative thread and was shot in a single location, opting instead to focus on tension, silence and the growing fear of a child left without rescue.

It will compete against high-profile films, including Frankenstein by Guillermo Del Toro, No Other Choice by Park Chan-wook, and A House of Dynamite by Kathryn Bigelow.

Ben Hania, whose last film Four Daughters was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2024 Academy Awards, said that the idea for the film came to her during a layover in Los Angeles, while she was in the middle of her Oscar campaign.

Ben Hania said she had a physical reaction after hearing Hind Rajab's plea for help. EPA

“Then, everything shifted. I heard an audio recording of Hind Rajab begging for help. By then, her voice had already spread across the internet," she said. "I immediately felt a mix of helplessness and an overwhelming sadness. A physical reaction, like the ground shifted under me. I couldn’t carry on as planned.”

The Voice of Hind Rajab is a deeply personal story of loss, but also carries a wider resonance, she said.

“This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief,” she said. “Cinema can preserve a memory. Cinema can resist amnesia. May Hind Rajab’s voice be heard.”

The 82nd Venice Film Festival opens on Wednesday.