Hind Rajab's voice shakes the theater: "A story that gives us hope."

"The Voice of Hind Rajab," winner of the Silver Lion at the recent Venice Film Festival, is in theaters starting September 25th, distributed by Bologna-based I Wonder Pictures. Tonight at the Pop Up Cinema Medica 4k in Bologna, Kaouther Ben Hania's film will be accompanied by actresses Saja Kilani and Clara Khuri: the program begins at 7:00 PM with a screening followed by a talk with the audience. At 9:30 PM, the actresses will introduce the film and, following the screening, will engage in a conversation with the audience. The last screening will be at 11:45 PM, and the talk scheduled after the 9:30 PM screening will be open until seats are full, so please arrive a little early. It's worth noting that the Tunisian director, born in 1977, chose all Palestinian actors and actresses to bring their own experiences of exile and tragedy to their roles as Red Crescent workers. Those, then, who answered the phone call of Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was asking for help from Gaza City, before she was killed by the Israeli army along with rescuers trying to save her. Original audio and acting are intertwined, as Saja Kilani, the young actress who plays an operator on the phone with Hind, explains.

Saja, how did your adventure in the film begin?

"With a self-tape I sent to the director, who called me back about a month later to say she liked the audition, but she couldn't find any of my work online. I told her I'd only been working for a short time, but I encouraged her to take a chance, to bet on me. I'm grateful."

How did the director prepare you for the fictional part based on a real document?

"I got in touch with Rana, the camera operator I play, and I have to say she was very generous with me. She said something really nice: 'I don't want you to copy me, I want you to simply listen to the recording and react as you feel.' This gave me the freedom to express myself and hear Hind's voice live for the first time: it was incredibly powerful, because the director wanted our most sincere reaction. We knew the content of the phone call from the script, but there was a huge gap between reading and listening."

How did you react to your emotions, which we imagine were heavy during filming?

I did a lot of theater before coming to film, and I'm very inspired by stories based on real events, because I believe in the educational power of cinema, which shouldn't just be entertainment. With Hind, the story is so powerful that your responsibility as an actor is even greater when you're portraying a real character who is still alive. I wanted Rana to recognize herself when she saw me in the film, and that could only happen by paying proper homage to her, with authenticity.

What did this shared experience bring about in you actors?

"We became a team, also because we are all Palestinians."

Your bio states that you are Jordanian, Palestinian, and Canadian. The biographies of your colleagues are also geographically complex: your families were also forced to flee.

Many Palestinians already live in various parts of the world, not by choice, but by force. But wherever you go, you carry your identity with you, and mine is based on the memories passed down to me by my grandparents, who were displaced from Nazareth and Jerusalem to Jordan in 1948, because I have never lived in Palestine. Hind's voice has certainly brought us together even more; her story has a tremendous power that gives us hope.