Amer Hlehel, Kawther Ben Hania, Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, and Clara Khoury posing with a portrait of Hind Rajab, on the red carpet before the presentation of the film "The Voice of Hind Rajab" at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Sept. 3, 2025. (Credit: Tiziana Fabi/AFP)
The powerful film The Voice of Hind Rajab by Tunisian director Kawther Ben Hania, which recounts the ordeal of a Palestinian girl killed in Gaza in early 2024, won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday. The prize is the festival’s second most prestigious award, while the Golden Lion went to Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother.
The awards were handed out during the closing ceremony of the festival’s 82nd edition in Venice, marked by numerous gestures and statements of solidarity with Gaza.
Jarmusch’s winning film, a triptych set in New Jersey, Dublin and Paris, features Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett and Tom Waits. Understated in its direction, the feature relies on silences, gestures and glances more than dialogue and serves as what the 72-year-old director called a “tender reflection on family.” Jarmusch, who wore dark glasses and a pin reading “Enough,” joked that the project was an “anti-action film.”
“You don’t need to talk politics to be political,” he said. “That can endanger empathy and connection between people, which is the first step to solving the problems we have.” He thanked the jury, led by fellow American filmmaker Alexander Payne, for honoring his “quiet film.”
The jury’s choice came at the expense of festival favorite The Voice of Hind Rajab, which drew a 23-minute standing ovation. Ben Hania dedicated her Silver Lion to Palestinian Red Crescent workers and called the film “the tragic story of an entire people suffering from a genocide inflicted by a criminal Israeli government acting with impunity.”
“Prizes are nice, but the most important thing is for this film to be seen, and seen again, and seen again,” she said, later telling AFP Video that Jarmusch had long been her “idol” and an inspiration for her career.
Her film uses real audio of 6-year-old Hind Rajab’s pleas for help during her final hours in Gaza City. Hind was found dead inside a bullet-ridden car on Jan. 29, 2024, along with six family members after spending hours on the phone with the Palestinian Red Crescent. The car had been struck by Israeli fire.
Despite a star-studded program, the Gaza war dominated this year’s festival. It opened with a statement from a collective of 10 Italian filmmakers condemning the conflict sparked by Hamas’ unprecedented Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, followed by a march on the Lido a week ago that drew thousands.
Other prizes went to Benny Safdie, named best director for The Smashing Machine, in which he cast Dwayne Johnson as an MMA fighter battling addiction. Italian actor Toni Servillo won best actor for his role in Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia, about a widowed president at the end of his term confronting moral dilemmas over euthanasia. Chinese actress Xin Zhilei won the Volpi Cup for best actress for The Sun Rises on Us All by Cai Shangjun, in which she portrays a woman tormented by an encounter with a former lover.
The closing ceremony ended with a video message from Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who urged an immediate halt to the war. “We know, it no longer makes sense to continue,” he said. “It’s time to stop this downward spiral.”
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