"But the films themselves struck a different note. Jury president Alexander Payne may have rebutted questions about current affairs during his opening press conference, declaring himself concerned only with discussing cinema, but cinema at Venice this year was concerned largely, it turned out, with discussing current events. The big hits of the festival were both nailbiting ticking-clock stories directed by women that tackled real-world situations of such tragedy and magnitude that many people shy from discussing them, let alone make a movie about them."
"Towards the end of the festival, The Voice of Hind Rajab, Kaouther Ben Hania's dramatisation of the killing by the Israel Defense Forces of a five-year-old girl in Gaza, earned a 23-minute standing ovation, as well as chants around the auditorium of Free Palestine. The film uses the real audio of Rajab's phone call with emergency call handlers, where she pleads to be rescued from the car in which she was trapped after Israeli tank fire killed the family members around her."
Venice combined traditional glamour with films focused on urgent real-world crises. Stars arrived by canal while the festival's standout films were intense, time-pressured dramas directed by women and centred on contemporary tragedies. Kaouther Ben Hania's The Voice of Hind Rajab dramatized the killing of a five-year-old in Gaza using the girl's real phone call audio, portraying an ambulance attack that killed two paramedics and the delayed recovery of bodies after twelve days. The film received a 23-minute standing ovation and audible chants of "Free Palestine". Filmmakers used cinema to confront violence and compel audiences to consider responses to modern warfare.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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