Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix join Gaza-based film as executive producers

VENICE, Italy (MNTV) — Hollywood actors Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, and Rooney Mara have joined as executive producers of The Voice of Hind Rajab, a Gaza-based drama set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 3 September.

Oscar-winning directors Alfonso Cuarón and Jonathan Glazer are also backing the project.

Glazer, who last year compared Israel’s assault on Gaza to the Holocaust during his Oscar speech for The Zone of Interest, is among the most high-profile voices tied to the film.

Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, the movie reconstructs the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car with relatives shot dead by Israeli forces in January 2024.

Voice recordings between Hind and Palestinian Red Crescent Society volunteers are central to the narrative, capturing her pleas for help and gunfire as paramedics attempted a failed rescue.

Two paramedics were also killed in the attack. UN experts later said her death could amount to a war crime, citing evidence that an Israeli tank fired at close range.

The film’s release comes amid international outrage over Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians since October 2023, most of them women and children, according to local health officials. Thousands more remain missing under rubble, while the enclave faces famine conditions.

Protests have already erupted in Venice ahead of the screening. Demonstrators carried “Free Palestine” banners, and Italian filmmakers called on festival organisers to denounce Israel’s invasion. Hundreds of civil society groups plan further rallies this weekend.