Spotlights feature conversations with high-profile film and television industry professionals who share helpful advice and insights on their career experiences and creative processes.
Join Sundance Collab for an exclusive online conversation with Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania on her new film.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, written and directed by Ben Hania, debuted to overwhelming praise at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, and it has since earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language. The film is based on the events of January 29, 2024, when volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent were alerted to call a five-year-old girl trapped in a car in Gaza and did everything they could to keep her on the line and get an ambulance to her. It has been named one of the Best Movies of 2025 by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Associated Press.
Ben Hania takes an experimental hybrid approach to this devastating story. A director of both fiction and documentary films, she incorporates the actual audio recordings of Hind Rajab's final phone calls into an otherwise scripted narrative feature. The result is a devastating anti-thriller: We witness a doomed race-against-time rescue mission as helplesslessly as her would-be rescuers experience it.
Ben Hania’s artistic approach builds upon her two previous Academy Award-nominated films. Four Daughters (2023), a hybrid documentary that wove actors into an otherwise nonfiction feature, won both the Independent Spirit Award and the Gotham Award before earning an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature. The Man Who Sold His Skin (2021), her acclaimed fiction film, was nominated for Best International Feature.
In this event, Ben Hania will discuss how she blurs the line between fiction and documentary to create groundbreaking, often unclassifiable work. The session will include time for an audience Q&A with Ben Hania. Don’t miss your chance to hear from the writer/director behind one of the most socially urgent films of 2025.
If you would benefit from an accommodation to fully participate in this event, please complete this form, contact us at (435) 776-7790, or email us at accessibility@sundance.org to discuss your specific requests. Every effort will be made to accommodate advance requests; however, requests made within 5 days of the event may not be guaranteed.
The business day after the live event, all registered attendees will receive an email with a link to a recording of the session that can be watched for two business days after it is posted. After that, on-demand access to the recording can be purchased for $10.
