Hopkins Center | The Voice of Hind Rajab
Event Info
April 23, 2026
7:00 PM - 9:30 PM
An Oscar Nominee for Best International Feature, this gripping docudrama follows emergency volunteers attempting to rescue a five-year-old girl trapped under fire in Gaza.
January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A five-year-old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.
Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania spares the audience the visual horrors, instead focusing the action on the dispatch center. As with her previous documentary-drama hybrid Four Daughters, she blends the actual phone recordings, which went viral several weeks after this incident, with dramatizations of the emergency workers racing against time to coordinate paramedics who could save her.
Despite taking home the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival (after a 22-minute standing ovation) and earning an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature, the film has received criticism for Ben Hania's blend of fiction and nonfiction, which she "sets in daring oil-and-water opposition" (The New Yorker). Depending on your perspective, the film exploits the tragedy for a control-room thriller or dilutes the raw power of the real story with melodrama. But even taking this criticism into account, the director raises a question worth exploring: whether a blend like this is necessary for the full truth of this heartbreaking story to sink in.
D: Kaouther Ben Hania, Tunisia, subtitled, 2026, 1h29m
Programmed as part of the Dartmouth Film Society series "Borders and Belonging" in collaboration with Professor Mimi Thi Nguyen's class "War and Visual Culture"
Make it a full Dartmouth night out! Elevate your experience with our An Evening at the Hopkins Center – Dinner, Show & Stay package. The Hanover Inn sits just steps from the Hopkins Center, making it effortless to enjoy world‑class performances without the hassle. Start your evening at PINE Restaurant, where craft cocktails and seasonal New England dishes set the perfect pre‑show mood. Then stroll to the Hop and return afterward to the comfort and charm of your room at the Inn. Treat yourself to the ultimate dinner‑and‑a‑show getaway!