The Voice of Hind Rajab: The Cinema of Witness

I don’t know about you, but I love going to the movies completely unprepared.

No trailers, no reviews, no “you have to see it, it’s incredible.”

I want the film to surprise me, to shake me, to make me doubt my own emotions. I want that moment when you sit down, the lights go out, and you think: “Okay, take me wherever you want.”

Sometimes I stumble upon unknown directors, unfamiliar faces, names I could easily mistake for Wi-Fi passwords - and yet, there it is - that small thrill of curiosity.

Because discovering something new, to me, feels like finding a secret room inside a house you thought you knew by heart.

Sure, finding yourself again is beautiful.

But losing yourself… losing yourself in a film completely foreign to you is something greater.

It’s an act of trust.

And cinema, like life, is an act of trust full of contradictions: joy, pain, chaos, and that fragile thread that binds them all together.

With that awareness, on September 28th, I went to the cinema. A few hours before stepping into the theater, I had already cried.

Because what I was about to see was a film I didn’t know, but couldn’t ignore - one whose story I knew in outline.

Because Hind Rajab was never just a character: she was a person. A five-year-old girl born at the wrong time, in the wrong place on planet Earth.

There’s something disarming about realizing that destiny is a geographical fact.

Some are born in neighborhoods with more cafés than hospitals; others in places where tanks fire at windshields.

And we, sitting in our comfortable red seats, try to understand how all this can coexist in the same world.

The Voice of Hind Rajab is directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian filmmaker previously nominated for an Oscar for The Man Who Sold His Skin.

Her touch is both delicate and surgical - as if she knows that telling the truth is an act of balance between pain and dignity.

The film retraces the last hours of Hind, a Palestinian girl trapped in a car after her family was struck during the bombings in Gaza on January 29, 2024.

Operators from the Palestinian Red Crescent managed to reach her: the call lasted for hours.

We hear Hind speaking, crying, pleading for help, praying.

Ben Hania chose not to recreate that voice, but to use the authentic audio from the recorded phone call.

The actors - including Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees, and Amer Hlehel - hadn’t heard the full recording before shooting.

They listened to it through headphones during the scenes, allowing the real to seep into their expressions.

It’s a choice that transforms acting into something almost mediumistic: they are not performing - they are listening.

And we, in turn, listen with them.

We don’t see death, but we can hear it breathing between the pauses.

At the Venice Film Festival, the screening was followed by twenty-four minutes of applause.

Twenty-four. Minutes.

An eternity, even for Venice.

But no one could bring themselves to leave: it was as if everyone needed to stay there, still, sharing the same lump in their throat.

As if clapping was the only way to say, “We’re not deaf, Hind. We heard you.”

The film won the Grand Jury Prize and is already shortlisted as Best International Feature for the 2026 Oscars.

Behind the production are names like Brad Pitt, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuarón, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jonathan Glazer - artists who, in a way, have lent their voices to those who no longer have one.

Hind Rajab is dead.

In Gaza today, hundreds of thousands of children are suffering, dying, while the world looks away.

Their voices echo inside our consciences, and silence is no longer acceptable.

Cinema has shown us a cruel reality, and ignoring that suffering is complicity.

If we remain still, if we choose not to hear, we become part of the tragedy.

And every day, every choice, reminds us that humanity is not a luxury: it’s a responsibility.

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Bianca curates and writes for The Olive Press, a space for reflections on cinema, culture, and landscape born within Il Giardino di Cristina.

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All images featured in this article are the property of their respective copyright holders. They are used here for informational and editorial purposes only, in the context of cultural commentary and non-commercial promotion. No copyright infringement is intended.

Beyond Conflict: Reflections on Radicalization in the Age of Global Fragility

The seeds of violence are sown in silence, in emptiness, in absence. You don’t see them grow - by the time you notice, it’s already too late.

In recent weeks - and especially following last night’s U.S. strike on Iran - the world has awakened with a clenched heart. The risk of escalation is real. Geopolitical fragility now has fluid borders, and war - the real kind - seems to be forcefully knocking again at Europe’s doors. But while we focus on military fronts, missiles, and strategies, we often forget the other battlefield: quieter, subtler, yet just as dangerous - the battlefield of radicalization.

Every war fought “outside” risks awakening smaller wars “within,” in countries that may seem distant but are psychologically exposed. And this is not only a matter of geopolitics, but of narratives, identities, and belonging.

To radicalize doesn’t simply mean “to become an extremist.” It’s often a slow, sticky process, made of wounded identities, ignored loneliness, failures interpreted as injustices. In shadowed homes, in living rooms where silence reigns, in fragmented families - that’s often where the void begins to spread.

But another place where radicalization silently grows is even closer to us: the internet.

Here, extremism goes viral. Some of the main jihadist networks (but also neo-fascist, white supremacist, and others) operate with surprising digital sophistication: videos edited with epic music, engaging storytelling, accounts that appear innocuous. The language is youthful, familiar. Today, radicalization comes with Instagram filters and hashtags.

And worse, algorithms help. Someone starting with a search for religious content can end up, within a few clicks, watching glorifications of martyrdom or conspiracy theories about the “corrupt” West. A single encrypted link on Telegram is enough to cross the line.

In countries affected by attacks - France, Belgium, the UK - de-radicalization centers have emerged, with mixed results. Some have failed, becoming little more than supervised dormitories. Others, however, have turned into human laboratories, where former extremists share their stories of downfall and redemption - testimonies that have a greater impact than a thousand sermons.

At the supranational level, the European Union has implemented important tools to prevent radicalization and counter terrorist propaganda online. Since 2022, a regulation has been in force requiring the removal of terrorist content from digital hosting services - including livestreams - within one hour. Moreover, the EU has established specific units, such as Europol’s Internet Referral Unit, to monitor extremist content and support Member States. Awareness networks are active across the continent, engaging thousands of frontline actors - from prison staff to teachers - to share best practices and identify the vulnerabilities that make individuals susceptible to radicalism. The EU Internet Forum also works to track how extremism evolves in the digital sphere. Because terrorism doesn’t only arise in the deserts of the Middle East - it often grows in the empty spaces of our digital democracies.

Defusing extremism means offering alternative narratives. It means educating people to embrace ambiguity, complexity, and the beauty of nuance. It means learning, as a society, to listen to fractured identities before they become political wounds. Because those who fall into hatred are not always monsters. Often, they’re someone’s child, a former classmate, a young person who found no other place to belong.

Our task - as artists, intellectuals, citizens - is to cultivate a form of resistance made of thought, poetry, hospitality, and imagination. But creating beauty is no longer enough: we also need presence, responsibility, and vision. We must get our hands dirty, inhabit educational spaces, engage in public debate, and hold our parliamentarians and political representatives accountable.

In an age where everything screams for vengeance, we need voices capable of disarming hatred - not fueling it.

To explore further:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/eu-response-to-terrorism/

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Bianca curates and writes for The Olive Press, a space for reflections on cinema, culture, and landscape born within Il Giardino di Cristina.

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All images featured in this article are the property of their respective copyright holders. They are used here for informational and editorial purposes only, in the context of cultural commentary and non-commercial promotion. No copyright infringement is intended.

Conclave by Edward Berger: Inside the Scenography of the Sacred

The Pope died on the morning of April 21st, 2025.

That day I got up around 9 a.m., with a lingering feeling I couldn’t quite shake. As if something was out of place.

Every morning, I switch on the news as I make coffee. That morning, in large red letters across the screen, I read: “Pope Francis has died.”

And I felt a pang in my chest - despite my faith being more uncertain than ever, despite the Church always stirring up conflicting emotions in me.

The death of a Pope… should it affect me?

Ralph Fiennes and Brían F. O'Byrne in Conclave (2024) Source: IMDb

Well, if you’re Italian and you live in Italy, yes. And it’s not just a matter of faith.

It’s cultural, symbolic, almost visceral. It’s something that passes through you.

My country was in mourning - and somehow, so was I.

But as I listened to the muffled voices of Vatican commentators, my ears began to ring. I could hear Volker Bertelmann’s violins. I saw the red robes of cardinals rustling nervously through the Vatican halls. I heard whispers. I watched glances.

Conclave (2024) Source: IMDb

Cinema has that power: it lingers on you. It prepares you, at times, for the unthinkable.

And Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and released in 2024, had left a trace on me almost as vivid as a taste on the tongue.

An adaptation of the eponymous novel by British author Robert Harris, Conclave won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2025.

It premiered in Italian cinemas in mid-December - just when concerns over the Pope’s health began to surface. A coincidence? Perhaps. But the timing made the film feel almost prophetic.

The cast features Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, and Isabella Rossellini.

Each plays an enigmatic, symbolic, powerful figure - each embodying a different vision of the Church: progressives, conservatives, moderates.

The conclave is a ritual, but also a dance. And most of all: a war.

Strategy is everything. Secrecy is its backbone.

Cardinal Dean Thomas Lawrence, played by Fiennes, guides the story through a crescendo of tension and ambiguity.

Shot between Cinecittà, Rome, and Italian locations such as the Royal Palace of Caserta and the Palazzo dei Congressi in the EUR district, Conclave captures the suspended, hieratic atmosphere of the Vatican.

Stéphane Fontaine’s lighting draws shadows that seem to watch you. Suzie Davis’s set design wraps around the film like a second skin - silent, enveloping.

And then there’s the music. Volker Bertelmann composed a score that breathes with the characters.

A prepared piano, dissonant notes, ancient echoes: the sound of enclosure and doubt.

This is not just a film about a papal election. It’s about power - its shapes, its compromises, its hypocrisies.

It’s also about faith - the kind that remains, and the kind that slips away.

And it tells its story without declarations, through Berger’s gaze - at once cold and human - the same that marked All Quiet on the Western Front.

On a day when history unfolded in real time, Conclave became, at least for me, both a visual and internal echo. A film that not only anticipated the headlines but also revealed who we really are - when power calls, and truth grows murky.

Starting Wednesday, the area around St. Peter’s will be sealed. Rome will draw close to the Vatican with the suspended stillness of a snowy day. Entry points will be closed, and the faithful will wait in hushed anticipation.

133 cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect the new pope. Men from 71 countries, with faith in their pockets and, perhaps, doubt in their eyes.

And all of us, outside, eyes fixed on the chimney. Waiting for the smoke.

Waiting for history to unfold before our very eyes.

I often wonder how much cinema there is in reality - and how much reality there is in certain films.

Conclave taught me that the rooms of power are full of silence, strategy, and symbols.

That mystery is not just a narrative device, but a deeply human mechanism.

And now that mystery is here, among us.

In the heart of Rome, beneath Michelangelo’s frescoes, in a breath held by the entire world.

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Bianca curates and writes for The Olive Press, a space for reflections on cinema, culture, and landscape born within Il Giardino di Cristina.

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All images featured in this article are the property of their respective copyright holders. They are used here for informational and editorial purposes only, in the context of cultural commentary and non-commercial promotion. No copyright infringement is intended.