Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab” will open the first edition of the Gaza International Festival for Women’s Cinema, which will be held Oct. 26-31 amid rubble in the heart of the Gaza strip.
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” screening as the fest’s opener in Deir El-Balah — a Palestinian city roughly nine miles outside Gaza City that has been the scene of major military operations and humanitarian crises — will mark the film’s Middle East premiere. The moving drama, which recently won Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, tells the true story of a 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was stranded in a car that was attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza and later found dead.
“I am truly moved that my film ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ has been chosen to open the first edition of the Gaza International Women’s Film Festival,” Ben Hania said in a statement on social media. “By hosting this festival in a city still scarred by devastation, the organizers are affirming that cinema can be a form of survival, a way to document pain, and a means to reclaim narrative.”
The Gaza International Festival for Women’s Cinema was first announced during the Venice Film Festival by Italian and Palestinian organizers, who at the time planned to hold it online. The festival’s lineup will feature roughly 80 films, including documentaries, shorts and fiction features from 28 countries — all of which tell of the lives, voices and struggles of women, according to a statement.
The honorary president is German filmmaker Monica Maurer, known as a director and producer of works on the Palestinian plight such as the doc “Gaza Hospital.” There are two juries: one for fiction films and one for documentaries. The fiction jury is chaired by French writer-director Céline Sciamma, who is being joined by Moroccan director Mohamed El Younsi, Italian actress Jasmine Trinca, Palestinian writer-director Fajr Yacoub and Algerian actress and theatre director Moni Boualam.
Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir — whose “Palestine 36″ reconstructs the revolt against British colonial rule in 1936 and has been picked as Palestine’s official entry for the Oscars’ international feature film race — chairs the documentary jury alongside Bahraini producer Bassim Al Thawadi, Italian producer Graziella Bildesheim, Kuwaiti director Abdulaziz Al-Sayegh and Cuban film editor Maricet Sancristobal.
The Gaza International Festival for Women’s Cinema is founded by Palestinian filmmaker and cultural events organizer Ezzaldeen Shalh, president of the International Union of Arab Cinema Festivals.
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