<\/p>\n
Venice Film Festival jury president Alexander Payne responded to backlash on Saturday after Jim Jarmusch\u2019s \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother\u201d was awarded the festival\u2019s Golden Lion over Kaouther Ben Hania\u2019s \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d which received a 22-minute standing ovation at its premiere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the unfair thing of being at a festival, is having to say this is better than that. It\u2019s not,\u201d Payne said when asked during a press conference why \u201cHind Rajab,\u201d a critical favorite at the festival, didn\u2019t win the Golden Lion. \u201cAs a jury, we treasure both of those films equally, each for its own reason. And we wish both of those films a long and important life, and we hope that the support of the awards we\u2019ve given tonight will help them, each in its own way.\u201d<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n Payne continued diplomatically, indicating that \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother\u201d \u2014 which stars Cate Blanchett and Adam Driver \u2014 wasn\u2019t exactly the far and away winner.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, if we had voted the day before, the day later, it might have been different \u2026 As I say, we treasure and value and protect both films equally in our hearts. And if one had to receive one prize [over] the other, it\u2019s for .000001% of having to make some kind of decision,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Rumors began swirling on social media on Saturday that there was tension in the jury room over deliberations for the Golden Lion, with some unfounded allegations that a member of the jury threatened to quit when it became clear \u201cHind Rajab\u201d wouldn\u2019t win the Golden Lion.<\/p>\n But Payne said that never happened. \u201cOne of my jurors threatened to quit? I did?! No, did someone threaten to quit? No. I think we know \u2026 not to believe everything we read online,\u201d he clarified.<\/p>\n Hania\u2019s film follows the events that led up to the death of five-year-old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child who lived in the Gaza Strip, using real audio from her emergency call. Rajab died alongside six of her family members after the Israeli military invaded the Strip.<\/p>\n Hind and her family were attempting to flee the city by car when they came under military fire. Her calls for help ended amid gunfire. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) were able to eventually reach the vehicle and confirmed the deaths of everyone inside, along with two paramedics who attempted to rescue Hind.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [Israeli] occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite obtaining prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the scene to rescue the child Hind,\u201d the PRCS said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n In reviewing the film for TheWrap, critic Ben Croll wrote that the Tunisian filmmaker renders the world \u201cwith unbearable clarity. \u2026 Setting raw audio against meticulously staged reenactments, her hybrid docufiction gives searing form to the most wrenching material, recreating in real-time the final hours of a six-year-old girl in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n Croll also noted that when the movie screened, it \u201cdrew the most effusive reaction I\u2019ve ever witnessed at the Venice Film Festival \u2013\u00a0this time from a crowd with no stake in the film. At its Wednesday morning press screening, applause thundered through the credits, breaking only when attendees collapsed into full-body sobs.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Venice Jury President Alexander Payne Denies Rumors Juror Threatened to Quit Over \u2018Voice of Hind Rajab\u2019 Snub<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venice Film Festival jury president Alexander Payne responded to backlash on Saturday after Jim Jarmusch\u2019s \u201cFather Mother Sister Brother\u201d was awarded the festival\u2019s Golden Lion over Kaouther Ben Hania\u2019s \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab,\u201d which received a 22-minute standing ovation at its premiere. \u201cThat\u2019s the unfair thing of being at a festival, is having to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2002866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[355993,357997,355723,364565,364566,333428],"class_list":["post-2002865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-alexander-payne","tag-father-mother-sister-brother","tag-golden-lion","tag-rajab","tag-the-golden-lion","tag-venice-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Venice-Jury-President-Alexander-Payne-Denies-Rumors-Juror-Threatened-to.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}