Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix Join Film About Hind Rajab as Executive Producers

Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt are among a growing group of film industry leaders lending their names to The Voice of Hind Rajab, a new drama about the killing of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in Gaza. 

Directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, the film will premiere Sept. 3 at the Venice Film Festival before its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Phoenix and Pitt join an accomplished slate of executive producers, including Oscar-winning director Jonathan Glazer, “Roma” filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, and actress Rooney Mara. 

Pitt’s Plan B producing partners, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, are also backing the project. The support, alongside industry powerhouses like Britain’s Film4 and Saudi-owned MBC Studios, is expected to boost the film’s international reach.

The Story of Hind Rajab

The film reconstructs the harrowing final hours of Hind Rajab, who was killed by Israeli forces in January 2024 while fleeing Gaza City with relatives. Investigations later revealed that Israeli soldiers knew children were inside the car before opening fire, unleashing more than 300 bullets.

Voice recordings between Hind and Red Crescent volunteers, who tried to keep her calm as they scrambled to send an ambulance, are central to the film’s narrative. 

Hind initially survived the attack that killed her family members but was fatally shot before rescuers could reach her.

Ben Hania said the film aims to preserve memory where news cycles fail. “I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes,” she said. “That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us. Cinema can preserve memory, resist amnesia, and make sure Hind Rajab’s voice is heard.”

The director’s previous works include Four Daughters, which earned an Academy Award nomination in 2023, and The Man Who Sold His Skin, also nominated for best international film.

Hollywood’s Reckoning on Gaza

The project arrives as Hollywood faces criticism over its muted response to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, where more than 61,000 people have been killed since October 2023, according to local health officials.

While some prominent actors such as Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, and Tilda Swinton have spoken out, many in the industry fear professional backlash for expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

Glazer, who is Jewish, drew industry outrage earlier this year after condemning Israel’s actions in his Oscar acceptance speech for The Zone of Interest. “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” he said. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst.”

The Venice Film Festival itself is expected to become a stage for protest.

Local activists and hundreds of international artists, including Ken Loach and French filmmaker Celine Sciamma, have announced demonstrations calling on the festival to denounce what they describe as genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Ben Hania insists the film speaks to universal grief as well as Palestinian suffering. “At the heart of this film is something very simple, and very hard to live with,” she said. “This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief.”

Produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha of Mime Films and Tanit Films, alongside Odessa Rae of RaeFilm Studios and James Wilson of JW Films, the film has already secured distribution deals across much of Europe, with CAA Media Finance representing North America.