Published on, Sept. 5 -- September 5, 2025 12:46 AM

A gut-wrenching new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year was given a 23-minute standing ovation after its premiere at the star-studded Venice Film Festival on Wednesday.

"The Voice of Hind Rajab", a docu-drama about real events from January 2024, left much of the audience and many journalists sobbing as it screened for the first time.

Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania and her cast, all dressed in black, were also in tears as they soaked in applause, cheers and shouts of "Free Palestine! at the 1,032-seat main festival cinema. "We see that the narrative all around world is that those dying in Gaza are collateral damage, in the media," Ben...