After months of delay over certification, Oscar-nominated film The Voice of Hind Rajab is set to be released in India on June 19, with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) clearing the film without cuts.
Directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, the film revisits the final hours of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl whose killing became one of the most widely reported cases of civilian deaths during Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
In January 2024, Hind was fleeing Gaza City with her relatives when the car they were travelling in came under Israeli fire. For hours, she remained trapped inside the vehicle surrounded by the bodies of her family members, while speaking over the phone with emergency responders from the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The ambulance sent to rescue her was later found destroyed, with two PRCS paramedics who had come to rescue her also killed.
Israel’s offensive has so far killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, including a large number of children, displaced much of Gaza’s population, and led to what United Nation agencies have described as a humanitarian catastrophe.
In March, Variety reported that the film’s India release had been delayed after it failed to receive CBFC clearance. Manoj Nandwana, head of Mumbai-based Jai Viratra Entertainment and the film’s distributor in India, alleged that a CBFC member had told him the film’s release could “break up the India-Israel relationship.”
Nandwana said he had submitted the film for certification in February and had initially planned a March 6 release. He questioned the delay, pointing out that the film had already been released in several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France.
Responding to the delay earlier, director Kaouther Ben Hania had written on Facebook, “Is the honeymoon between the ‘world’s largest democracy’ and the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ so fragile that a film could break it?”
Following the clearance in June, Nandwana thanked the CBFC “for granting certification without any cut to The Voice of Hind Rajab and enabling Indian audiences to engage with this important cinematic work.”
The film was nominated under the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards, representing Tunisia.
This story was written by a student interning with TNM.