The Voice of Hind Rajab, the Gaza-set drama that received an emotional 21-minute ovation at the Venice Film Festival following its world premiere, has secured U.S. distribution.
Indie Willa has set a Dec. 17 release in New York City and Los Angeles ahead of a national rollout for the Venice Silver Lion Grand Jury winner based on the final, real-life calls of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car in Gaza before being killed by Israeli tank fire.
“We’re looking forward to partnering with Willa on the distribution of our film.After weighing numerous opportunities, we chose to keep this release in the family, Willa brings thoughtfulness and vision to distribution, and together we’re building a release that honors the spirit in which the film was created,” the film’s producers, Nadim Cheikhrouha, Odessa Rae and James Wilson, said in a joint statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
The Voice of Hind Rajab is based on true events and the calls of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car in Gaza on January 29, 2024, after Israeli tank fire killed her relatives. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stayed on the line with the child for more than an hour as she pleaded for rescue.
An ambulance sent to reach her was itself destroyed, killing the two medics on board. Hind’s voice — fragments of which spread online and were later verified and analyzed by outlets including The Washington Post, SkyNews and Forensic Architecture — became one of the most haunting and emblematic testaments of the war in Gaza.
“As one of the executive producers of the film, I’m honored that my distribution company can serve the cause of sharing the film with audiences. It’s a powerful work that demands to be experienced in theaters, and we’re proud to champion it alongside the producers Nadim, Odessa, Jim, and my fellow executive producers to ensure it reaches the widest possible audience,” added Elizabeth Woodward, CEO and founder of Willa, in her own statement.
Ben Hania wrote and directed the film, which stars Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel and Clara Khoury. The producer credits are shared by Nadim Cheikhrouha, Odessa Rae and and James Wilson, while Willa’s Elizabeth Woodward, Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Glazer and Cuaron executive produce.
The undeniably robust 82nd edition of the VeniceInternational Film Festival has come to a triumphant finish.
Heading into Saturday night’s awards ceremony, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab was widely viewed as the movie to beat for this year’s Golden Lion. The powerful Gaza-set drama, which tells the story of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl’s desperate pleas for rescue after Israeli forces killed her relatives, received a thunderous 21-minute standing ovation at its world premiere, one of the longest in the Venice Film Festival‘s history.
But the film ended up going home with the festival’s Silver Lion for the Grand Jury prize, aka second place.
“I dedicate this award to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to all those who have risked everything to save lives in Gaza. They are real heroes,” Ben Hania said in her powerful acceptance speech. “The voice of Hind is the voice of Gaza itself, a cry for rescue the entire world could hear, yet no one answered. Her voice will continue. Her voice will continue to echo until accountability is real, until justice is served.”
Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Alfonso Cuarón boosted the movie’s profile ahead of the festival by joining its team as executive producers, while critics on the Lido hailed it as an “intensely involving and resounding” indictment of Israel’s genocidal campaigns against the Palestinian population.
Jim Jarmusch‘s delicate triptych Father Mother Sister Brother, celebrated for its effortless poignancy, was the night’s dark horse champ, handing the American indie film icon his first Venice Golden Lion.
“Oh shit,” Jarmusch said as he accepted his trophy, before quickly adding, “All of us here who make films, we’re not motivated by competition, but I truly appreciate this unexpected honor.”
“Art does not have to address politics directly to be political,” Jarmusch went on. “It can engender empathy and a connection between us, which is really the first step for solving things and problems that we have. So I thank you for appreciating our quiet film.”
Father Mother Sister Brother is composed of three separate but thematically linked stories, each exploring adult siblings and their strained relationships with their parents. The film’s outstanding ensemble cast includes Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps and Indya Moore, among others. The Hollywood Reporter‘s lead critic summed the film up as “a funny, tender, astutely observed jewel.”
Jim Jarmusch receives the Golden Lion for Best Film for “Father Mother Sister Brother” at the closing ceremony during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.
Benny Safdie brought home the festival’s best director prize for his offbeat MMA biopic The Smashing Machine, his first feature as a solo director without his brother Josh Safdie, and Dwayne Johnson’s first movie as a serious dramatic actor.
Safdie gave an emotional shoutout to his star as he accepted his trophy, saying, “Oh my God, Dwayne, my friend, my brother, my partner — ‘shoulder and shoulder,’ that’s what we called it. I just want to thank you for diving in headfirst with a blindfold and X-ray vision. You truly performed with no net, and we jumped off the cliff together. We grew together, learned together.”
Chinese actress Xin Zhilei took home the festival’s first major awards category earlier in the evening, winning the best actress prize for her heart-wrenching performance in Chinese director Cai Shangjun’s drama The Sun Rises on Us All. The trophy was handed to Xin by jury member and fellow Chinese arthouse star Zhao Tao (Ash Is the Purest White).
And as many on the Lido predicted over the past week, best actor honors landed in the hands of the great Italian theater actor turned film icon Toni Servillo for his humane and hilarious performance as the president of Italy in Paolo Sorrentino’s meditative drama La Grazia. Critics have praised the film as a return to form for the Italian director and his muse, sparking talk of a potential repeat of their awards season magic in 2013, when their breakthrough collaboration, The Great Beauty, won the Oscar in the best international film category.
French filmmaker Valérie Donzelli and her co-writer Gilles Marchand won the best screenplay prize for At Work, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by author Franck Courtès. The film is a drama about a successful photographer who gives up everything to pursue a dream of becoming a writer.
Speculation was especially heated heading into the awards ceremony thanks to the absurd number of must-see movies that festival boss Alberto Barbera had secured for the 2025 program. Netflix brought its strongest slate in years to Italy, including Noah Baumbach’s George Clooney star vehicle Jay Kelly, Kathryn Bigelow’s gripping geopolitical thriller A House of Dynamite and Guillermo del Toro’s dark reimagining of Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi as the creature. And scores of the world’s top auteurs came to compete with strong new titles — many of them instant Oscar contenders the moment the customary standing ovations wound down each night inside Venice’s Sala Grande cinema.
Venice’s takeaway after nearly two weeks of peerless moviegoing was resounding: The business model of theatrical film may be under relentless assault, but the art form remains as vital as ever.
Korean maestro Park Chan-wook’s wildly inventive black comedy No Other Choice was possibly the festival favorite with critics, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ bonkers Bugonia and Sorrentino’s aching La Grazia were also celebrated as exquisite returns to form. Show-stopping performances that went home empty-handed came in the form of Julia Roberts in Luca Guadagnino’s provocative #MeToo-themed thriller After the Hunt and Amanda Seyfried as the riveting lead of Mona Fastvold’s visionary period drama Ann Lee.
And there was much more: Jude Law as Vladimir Putin in Olivier Assayas’ The Wizard of the Kremlin, France’s François Ozon back in fine form with Albert Camus adaptation The Stranger, Willem Dafoe pulling double-duty with characteristic excellence in Late Fame and The Souffleur, Julian Schnabel’s must-see, Megalopolis-like misfire In the Hand of Dante (with a cast including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsese and Jason Momoa), and the one and only Werner Herzog receiving a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the start of the fest from none less than fellow uber-auteur Francis Ford Coppola.
Two-time Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne (The Holdovers, Sideways) chaired the panel of global film figures tasked with the difficult duty of selecting this year’s winners. Payne’s jury included Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, Iranian auteur Mohammad Rasoulof, French director Stéphane Brizé, Italian filmmaker Maura Delpero (Vermiglio), Chinese actress Zhao and Palme d’Or winning Romanian director Cristian Mungiu.
Saturday’s ceremony included a tribute and prolonged standing ovation for the late, great Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died Thursday at the age of 91.
“Thank you, Giorgio Armani, for teaching us that creativity thrives in spaces where disciplines meet —fashion, cinema, art, new materials, architecture — just like they do every day here at the Venice Biennale,” said Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, which is currently underway alongside the film festival.
The 2025 Horizons section (Orizzonti) — which highlights the latest aesthetic trends in cinema with special attention to debut films — honored Mexican director David Pablos’ hauntingly original road movie En El Camino (On the Road) with its best film prize. The film follows a young drifter and a taciturn trucker who link up and forge a precarious bond on Mexico’s dangerous highways.
“This film comes from a very personal place — from the guts — and it’s beautiful to see that it connects with other people,” said Pablos in his brief acceptance speech.
This year’s Horizons jury was chaired by French director and Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau of Titane fame.
Italy’s Benedetta Porcaroli took Horizons’ best actress prize for the drama The Kidnapping of Arabellaand Giacomo Covi nabbed best actor for his turn in the Italian-French coming-of-age film A Year of School. Indian filmmaker Anuparna Roy won best director for Songs of the Forgotten Trees, a moving drama set in Mumbai about an unlikely bond that forms between a part-time sex worker and a corporate employee. And the Orizzonti jury prize was handed to Japanese director Akio Fujimoto for his drama Lost Land, the story of two Rohingya child refugees on a perilous journey to reach Malaysia.
The 2025 Venice Film Festival ran Aug. 27-Sept. 6. A complete list of this year’s winners follows.
Main Competition
Golden Lion — Best Film Father Mother Sister Brother