The Voice of Hind Rajab was an internationally acclaimed film banned in India by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) due to the state’s concerns over its release. Written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, the film premiered at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2025 and won the Grand Jury Prize. It was also nominated at both the 98th Academy Awards and the 83rd Golden Globe Awards for Best International Feature Film and Best Foreign Language Film, respectively.
The film is a reconstruction of the final hours of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian child surrounded by Israeli fire and murdered by Israeli forces in Gaza.
The film is a reconstruction of the last hours of Hind Rajaba 5-year-old Palestinian child who was and was surrounded by Israeli fire in Gaza murdered by Israeli forces. The film takes place over phone calls between Hind and the members of the Red Crescent Society who were trying to send an ambulance to save her. However, their rescue efforts were thwarted by Israeli security forces and the two volunteer medics sent to rescue them were also murdered.
An honest and emotionally intense retelling
The film is based on the actual voice recordings between Hind and the members of the Red Crescent Society and reveals the tragedy without any programmatic embellishment. The absence of visual excesses intensifies the emotional experience and puts the viewer in the position of a helpless witness. The film does not dramatize violence; it simply allows us to witness the real violence that Hind experienced. As a viewer, you feel desperation, despair and helplessness, but nothing that even comes close to what Hind must have gone through.
Hania’s ethical commitment to the story of Hind Rajab is reflected in her refusal to sensationalize the tragedy. It does not instrumentalize the suffering, but rather intensifies it.
In “The Voice Of Hind Rajab” Kaouther Ben Hania combines elements of fictional and non-fictional filmmaking. The real voice recordings form a solid backbone, with sensitively and ethically staged sequences creating a spatial and emotional context. The other aspects that the filmmaker focuses on are tone, duration and absence. By rejecting the visual recreation of violence, the film gives way to a sensory and psychological experience. Hania’s ethical commitment to the story of Hind Rajab is reflected in her refusal to sensationalize the tragedy. It does not instrumentalize the suffering, but rather intensifies it.
A scene from “The Voice of Hind Rajab”. Image source: Tanit Films/MBC Studios/Plan B Entertainment and Ors
In the film, the efforts of Red Crescent Society members, namely Omar (played by Motaz Malhee) and Rana (played by Saja Kilani), to save Hind are layered with their own frustrating, turbulent reality. The film highlights the fact that in the face of the genocide in Gaza, only limited humanitarian assistance was possible given the brutal repression by the Israeli army and Israel’s tolerance of such actions Israel’s supporters. Through the members of the Red Crescent Society, the film also explores the broader state of civilian vulnerability.
Cinema, geopolitics and ideological state apparatuses
The CBFC arbitrarily justified that the release of the film could “destroy relations between India and Israel”. The ban has become a politically charged cultural movement that reveals tensions between artistic freedom, state censorship and foreign policy. The ban deals with a humanitarian story and a testament to war as a geopolitical object.
The CBFC used to censor films on moral grounds; In the meantime, however, people have turned to strategic-political censorship. This is due to the Indian government’s open diplomatic cooperation with Israel, particularly during the Gaza genocide. This decision envisions a future in which censorship is used as a tool to serve the interests of foreign powers.
The CBFC used to censor films on moral grounds; In the meantime, however, people have turned to strategic-political censorship. This is due to the Indian government’s open diplomatic cooperation with Israel, particularly during the Gaza genocide.
The CBFC’s decision to ban the film’s release can be understood through French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser’s 1970 essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Althusser’s theory assumes that power is reproduced through ideology and not just through state power.
He divides the mechanisms through which state power is restored into two mechanisms: first, the repressive state apparatus (RSA), which includes the police, the military, the courts and prisons; The second is the ideological state apparatus (ISA), which includes the education system, family, religion, media, culture (including cinema) and the political system.
The latter works primarily through ideology, not violence. Governments influence funding, censorship, permissions and distribution, determining which stories are told and which are silenced. The ISA reinforces the dominant ideology and turns the viewer into a passive subject. The state’s clear ideological position of banning the film should be viewed as undesirable and irresponsible as it aims to push the boundaries of the public imagination.
In a democratic framework, the interpretation of art and artistic expression should promote diversity, critical reflection and emotional engagement. However, the representation of diverse narratives, critical power structures and discourses on global and national issues in cinema is blocked by bans and censorship.
Hind Rajab in an undated photo. Photo credit: Reuters
This denies access to human narratives, in this case centered around a Palestinian child, and hinders the articulation of a political position on the issue. The selective restriction of freedom of expression politicizes art. It imposes state ideology and disrupts dialogue, which can influence the audience’s point of view.
The dual mechanisms behind politicization of art
Access to cinema is shaped by the state and its allies. This is done by managing the visibility, distribution and legitimacy of narratives. The banning of “The Voice of Hind Rajab” is an example of the mechanism of oppression, as there is no longer any room for engagement with the work and for any possibility of interpretation or disagreement.
On the contrary, films like The Kashmir Files, The Kerala Story and Dhurandhar are examples of the mechanism of amplification. Their themes such as ultranationalism and religious or cultural conflicts reflect the prevailing political mood. In some cases, the cinema release of such films is even permitted tax-free showings.
The politicization of cinema is not a single act of censorship or propaganda, but a coordinated dual process. In such a system, cinema takes the form of state power and ideology rather than simply reflecting reality.
When the mechanisms of selective repression and selective reinforcement work together, they create a controlled cultural ecosystem. Therefore, the risk of censorship and self-censorship increases, leading to a narrow public view with an uneven and asymmetrical public debate. The politicization of cinema is not a single act of censorship or propaganda, but a coordinated dual process. In such a system, cinema takes the form of state power and ideology rather than simply reflecting reality.
Hind Rajab’s voice foregrounds human vulnerability and civil suffering, narratives that are often marginalized in the dominant geopolitical landscape. Further, Bans and censorship Other films such as All That’s Left Of You, Once Upon A Time In Gaza and many others point to the control that the state and world politics have over cinema. The absence of The Voice of Hind Rajab from Indian cinemas is not just about censorship; It is an example of how the state exercises power over us and everything around us.
dynasty is a film graduate from AJK MCRC, Jamia Thousands Islamia explores the world of film through archives and the lenses of political history, gender, culture and social movements. He draws inspiration from the eccentricities of everyday life and blurs the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction.
