Cert - 15

Run-time - 1 hour 29 minutes

Director - Kaouther Ben Hania

Call centre volunteers navigate endless processes to get an ambulance through Gaza to a 6-year-old stranded in a car surrounded by IDF soldiers.

"This dramatisation is based on real events, and emergency calls recorded that day... The voices on the phone are real." As the volunteers at a Red Crescent call centre 52 miles from Gaza, where mass bombings have destroyed communications, talk to 6-year-old Hind Rajab it feels as if they're actually talking to a child.

Perhaps because, in some ways, they are. There's a shaking sense of false calmness to their voices as they try to keep the child, and themselves, calm whilst she's trapped in a car waiting for an ambulance to be given permission to reach the area.

All the action is contained within the call centre. Our minds create images from the fears held there. Terrifying rumbles and gunshots in the background of Hind's call are paired with the peaks and dips of the audio wave recording, like looking at a heart-rate monitor with the growing worry of seeing a straight line.

Our fears only grow when someone manages to find a picture of Hind's face, smiling, before the war (the events the film recreates happened in January 2024).

The stages to get permission for an ambulance are endless with countless delays from the relevant parties. Multiple times it feels as if things are too late. Volunteers struggle to hold back their tears, with Motaz Malhees and Saja Kilani delivering powerhouse performances overflowing with emotion - both of which should be in the awards conversation.

It's through the performances of the small ensemble that the emotion of the film is truly exerted. A moment of guided meditation part way through is for the audience as much as those on-screen. It allows us to escape the glaring lights of the darkened room just for a moment; to see some gentle sunlight. A glimmer of peace and hope, even if just to cling to to calm our minds amongst the tragedy at hand.

A more prolonged moment compared to the very light, brief moments of natural, conversational humour confined to the early stages before the situation's intensity spreads. Before the gunfire gets closer to the other side of the phone, or the call is hung up.

The Voice Of Hind Rajab is one of the few films I've seen where almost everyone sat through the credits in silence. Even those who shuffled out during seemed to do so slowly, quietly and with their heads slightly down, not in their phones. It's a film of helplessness, distance and tense fear.

I went in not knowing the outcome, but had I gone in knowing there would still have been as much emotion, suspense and tragedy. Because, the film is about the inhumanity raging against the attempts to keep the 6-year-old trapped in the car safe, and that leads her to be there in the first place. An undoubtedly difficult watch, but one made with a flood of humanity and emotion.

Four stars