New York – Quds Press
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December 18, 2025 3:10 PM
Four Arab films entered the race to compete for the Academy Award for Best International Film in its 98th session, which is awarded annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to films produced outside the United States.
The initial list, which included 15 films out of 86 works that met the competition conditions, included prominent works such as: “The Voice of Hind Rajab” by Tunisian director Kawthar Ben Haniyeh, “What Remains of You” by American-Jordanian director Sherine Daibes, “Palestine 36” by Palestinian director Anne-Marie Jacir, and “President’s Cake” by Iraqi director Hassan Hadi.
The film “The Voice of Hind Rajab” deals with the tragedy of the five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was martyred during the Israeli war on Gaza, with a focus on the impact of the war on children and civil society in the Strip.
Director Kawthar Ben Hania, who is participating in the Oscar race for the third time in five years after her previous films “The Man Who Sold His Back” and “Daughters of Olfa,” explained that the film was filmed in a documentary style that mixes realistic scenes with drama, to present a vivid picture of the daily pain and suffering of Palestinian civilians.
The film had its world premiere at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, and won the Silver Lion Award.
As for the film “Palestine 36” by Palestinian director Anne-Marie Jacir, it recalls the events that Gaza witnessed during the war, focusing on Palestinian steadfastness in the face of bombing and displacement. The film combines live testimonies from citizens and families who lost members, and documentary scenes of damage to buildings and infrastructure, to show the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe left by the war, with a focus on the human dimension that is often neglected in traditional news coverage.
These nominations come at a time when international Arab cinema is witnessing remarkable growth, as Arab works seek to tell tragic and humanitarian stories from conflict areas, while maintaining an attractive artistic language for international awards.
The short lists of films competing for the Oscars are scheduled to be announced on January 22, 2026, and the awards ceremony will be held on March 15, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Since October 7, 2023 – with American and European support – Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, which included killing, starvation, destruction, displacement and arrest, ignoring international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to stop it.
The genocide left more than 241,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced and a famine that claimed the lives of many, most of them children, in addition to the comprehensive destruction and erasure of most of the Gaza Strip’s cities and regions from the map.
