Why Are We Making Movies About an Ongoing Genocide Instead of Working to Stop It?

Hind Rajab doesn't need cinematic grief, she needs justice.

Still from the movie ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’

When I first heard the news about the ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ movie being released, backed by a Hollywood A-list producer team, my first reaction was — great, it’s super important this gets made for all the world to see. For everyone who isn’t already aware of what the Israeli army is capable of, to see them pummel 335 bullets into the body of a 6-year-old girl, while claiming self-defense.

I went to sleep and woke up feeling uneasy about it. My digestive system always gives me the best instincts. I began to examine why I felt the way I did. Firstly, I wasn’t ok with Brad Pitt being on the producing team. It felt like he was only doing it to whitewash his domestic abuser reputation. Why on earth would you get on a producer team of a movie covering a war crime you never said a word about?

Brad Pitt’s name alone could help end this genocide. If he stood on any stage in the world, named the perpetrator — Israel, and demanded an end to the offensive, it would surely set the ball rolling. Yet he has never uttered a word about this Holocaust of our time unfolding before our eyes, never lent his name to the victims’ plea, never used his influence to try to stop it — and now he’ll profit from a movie about the very genocide he has refused to speak about publicly?

Every time I have a strong feeling about something to do with Gaza or Palestine, I ask my Palestinian friend what she thinks about it, am I right with what I think or feel, and what is her take? After all, however the Palestinian people feel about any of this, should be the norm we should all follow. This is their story. So I asked her what she thinks about this movie being made, depicting the death of one of her people. Her response was this:

“I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it feels like it’s all about the actors, movies, and fame. A popular topic that might not actually change anything. Part of me can’t help but feel that Gaza’s suffering is being used in the outside world for other people’s purposes. On the other hand, I know that some of them genuinely have good intentions and truly want the world to see what’s happening. We’ve tried so many ways to get the word out, and maybe this is just another one. I’m trying to focus on the good in it, but deep down, I still struggle with how it makes me feel knowing the Gazans’ suffering is being used by many.”

No matter which angle I take, I keep coming back to the same question: Why are we making a movie about an ongoing genocide instead of using everything we’ve got to try to stop it? Why are we romanticizing this death on screen like this genocide happened in the past? Why are we cinematicising this grief while children, like Hind, are still being slaughtered daily?

If you cannot see my point, I implore you to think about this, as some of you only react to white people’s deaths: Imagine Schindler’s List being made in 1944? Imagine Schindler’s List being released while Auschwitz-Birkenau is still open and running? Wouldn’t you say then, hold on a minute, why are we making a film, why don’t we do something to rescue these people?

Why are we reminiscing about an atrocity taking place, WHILE it’s taking place?

Why are we not using the Hollywood A-list influence to end this suffering? Why are we making movies instead of raging and rallying people to shut down everything until we force Israel to stop? Is this just a project to pacify the masses, then? Get some points in a largely pro-Palestinian world, as of last?

I hate the headlines flooding the media today about this movie.

Deadline: ‘Gaza Drama ‘The Voice Of Hind Rajab’ Gets Record 23-Minute-Plus Ovation At Venice World Premiere.’

Variety: ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’ Stuns Venice With Its Longest Standing Ovation of 22 Minutes Amid Tears and ‘Free Palestine’ Chants’’

BBC: ‘Film about Gaza child's killing gets record ovation at Venice’

Guardian: ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab gets 23-minute ovation at Venice film festival’

This medieval brutality, allowed to happen in the year 2024, this absolutely devastating tragedy of a 6-year-old pleading for help for 3 hours, alone in the car, sitting among dead relatives, corpses, for 3 hours, before they riddled her tiny body with 335 bullets — all this is reduced to a record. A 23-minute standing ovation!

Is that the record we should be talking about? And not a record of Israel having the audacity to execute a small child with 335 bullets, then lie about it, then claim they are investigating it for a year and eight months, and the whole world accepting it as normal? Or should we talk about the record number of children Israel executed as a policy, as they see children as a demographic threat, while the whole world stands down?

This girl’s life is reduced to a 23-minute standing ovation! How can you bear it?

Another thing that worries me is the opening title card on the ‘Voice of Hind Rajab’ film, which says: “This is a dramatization based on real events. The emergency calls were recorded that day.” Just imagine what the Zionists will do with this opening title card? All of the people who support Israel’s onslaught on the Palestinian people, who constantly lie that the genocide in Gaza is fake, made up, shamelessly calling it “Pallywood”, imagine what they will do with the “dramatization based on real events.” They will take it and say it’s all made up. They already are, all over Twitter.

The story of Hind Rajab is so gruesome, there’s nothing you’ll ever hear that’s worse than a 6 year old child being alone in the car, sitting among dead relatives already executed by the Israeli army, pleading for help on the phone with Red Cresent, staring at the tank that’s staring back at her, before she was riddled with 335 bullets.

Her story doesn’t ned to be dramatized, it needs to stand alone, in reality and truth, as a stark reminder of what the State of Israel is capable of, and what 82% of their citizens support.

I read a comment on Instagram by @jeno_ortiz that fully summarizes what I think about this movie being made:

Hind doesn’t need a film.

She needed to live.

She needs Justice, not cinematic grief.

Stop aestheticizing pain.

Start demanding accountability.

What really scares me is the thought that we are a society incapable of any real action; action that would require us to sacrifice jobs, privilege, opportunity, or comfort—to enact genuine change. To halt everything. To stop this! It seems we’re only capable of passively observing atrocities and crimes, then talking about them, posting about them, making films or writing poems about them, instead of being revolutionary enough to stop them.

We should never, ever lie to ourselves or others again: “If we only lived through WW2, we would never allow concentration camps to happen, if I were alive then, I would go in and rescue those people”.

No, you wouldn’t.

We would watch it, just as we are watching now, then make films and create content about it, while people are still losing limbs, as I type this.

Respect to all the Palestinian actors and crew on this film; they are doing what they must to get the world to see their suffering after 77 years of being invisible. The shame lies entirely with us for not doing more to stop it.