A harrowing docudrama about Israel’s killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl during its ongoing war on Gaza has won the Silver Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival.
The Voice of Hind Rajab, by French-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, came in second on Saturday to the movie Father Mother Sister Brother by United States indie director Jim Jarmusch.
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The film tells the true story of Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces last year, as she and her family tried to evacuate Gaza City.
It uses real audio from Rajab’s hours-long call to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, in which rescuers tried to reassure her as she lay trapped in a bullet-ridden car with the bodies of her aunt, uncle and three cousins, who had all been killed by Israeli fire.
The girl was then also killed, as were the two ambulance workers who went to the scene to try and rescue her.
The film was the most talked-about movie on the Venice Lido and tipped by many as the likely winner after a 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere on Wednesday.
Ben Hania, accepting her award, said Rajab’s story was not just that of the young girl, but tragically that of “an entire people enduring genocide”.
“Cinema cannot bring Hind back, nor can it erase the atrocity committed against her. Nothing can ever restore what was taken, but cinema can preserve her voice, make it resonate across borders,” the director said.
“Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real, until justice is served.”
Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, including more than 18,000 children, cast a long shadow over this year’s festival.
Jarmusch, who won the coveted Golden Lion, signalled his opposition to Israel’s continued siege and bombardment of Gaza by wearing a badge saying “Enough” at the award ceremony.
Earlier in the weekend, when he had unveiled Father Mother Sister Brother, the 72-year-old director acknowledged that he was concerned that one of his main distributors had taken money from a company with ties to the Israeli military.
Jarmusch’s winning film stars Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits, and is a three-part meditation on the uneasy ties between parents and their adult children.
He called Saturday’s win an “unexpected honour” and thanked the grand jury for “appreciating our quiet film”.
In other categories, Italy’s Toni Servillo was named best actor for his wry portrayal of a weary president nearing the end of his mandate, in La Grazia, while China’s Xin Zhilei won best actress for her role in The Sun Rises On Us All, a drama that delves into questions of sacrifice, guilt and unresolved feelings between estranged lovers who share a dark secret.
The best director nod went to Benny Safdie for The Smashing Machine, which starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the role of the real-life mixed martial arts pioneer Mark Kerr.
The special jury award went to Italy’s Gianfranco Rosi for his black-and-white documentary Below the Clouds, about life in the chaotic southern city of Naples, marked by repeated earthquakes and the threat of volcanic eruptions.
Servillo, who won best actor, was one of several award-winners to speak about Gaza from the stage, expressing “admiration” for activists on a flotilla of boats attempting to break Israel’s siege of Gaza.
They “have decided to set sail with courage to reach Palestine and to bring a sign of humanity to a land where human dignity is daily and cruelly demeaned”, Servillo said.
Annapurna Roy, who won the best director prize in the Horizons sidebar, a discovery section led by French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, also devoted part of her remarks to the conflict in Gaza.
Roy, who is Indian, won the award for her debut feature, Songs of Forgotton Trees, about two migrant women in Mumbai.
“Every child deserves peace, freedom, liberation, and Palestine is no exception,” Roy said. “I stand beside Palestine. I might upset my country, but it doesn’t matter to me any more.”
Armani Beauty’s audience award winning filmmaker Maryam Touzani (Calle Málaga) also spotlighted the conflict in Gaza.
“How many mothers have been made childless?” she said. “How many more until this horror is brought to an end? We refuse to lose our humanity.”
The Venice festival marks the start of the awards season, and regularly throws up big favourites for the Oscars, with films premiering there over the past four years collecting more than 90 Oscar nominations and winning almost 20.
Among the movies that left Venice empty-handed were a trio of Netflix pictures, Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear thriller A House of Dynamite, Guillermo del Toro’s re-telling of Frankenstein, and Noah Baumbach’s comedy-drama Jay Kelly.
No Other Choice by South Korea’s Park Chan-wook also failed to secure an award, despite strong reviews; likewise, Bugonia by Yorgos Lanthimos, which starred Emma Stone.