For the record, I do actually think the ethical dimension of the film is interesting. But I also think that focusing so heavily on “legitimacy” ends up revealing a certain privilege, especially in this idea that getting Hind’s “endorsement” somehow resolves everything (which seems to be what makes certain critics feel comfortable forgiving it.).

Because, honestly, even the whole discourse around consent and documentary ethics is a privileged framework, the kind you mostly hear in festival spaces among people who have the time and distance to debate it. Meanwhile this film was made with (a) her mother’s consent and (b) a message that matters. For whom is the ethical purity test really being performed?

So the question becomes: is this critique an act of genuine care for Hind and her family, or is it an intellectual gesture from the comfort of film culture, where the idea of “ethics” carries more weight than the real suffering the film gestures toward? If critics are not living through what people in Gaza are living through, and if the call-centre workers involved in the project gave their blessing, then who exactly are we defending here?

At the end of the day, who do you care about more: the actual people, or your privileged notion of what counts as “proper endorsement”?