Film on slain Palestinian photojournalist is a wrenching chronicle of unimaginable courage

Between 2024 and 2025, Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi interviewed Fatima Hassouna about the Palestinian photojournalist’s life in Gaza, which has been subjected to massive bombardment since the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023. In April, the resulting documentary, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival’s sidebar event ACID.

Farsi relayed this news on April 14 to an elated Hassouna. The next day, Hassouna and six members of her family were killed in an Israeli air strike on their home in Gaza.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a wrenching, conscience-pricking chronicle of unimaginable courage in the face of relentless aggression. Hassouna, who was 25 when she was killed, displays cheerful resilience and moral courage that leaves a crater-sized hole in the heart.

The 112-minute film was premiered at Cannes on Thursday. At the opening ceremony on May 13, jury president Juliette Binoche read out excerpts from a poem by Hassouna that is also featured in the documentary.

Sepideh Farsi began working on Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk even as her animated drama The Siren was doing the rounds of festivals in 2023 and 2024. Set during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, The Siren is a gorgeous movie about anti-war resistance from a filmmaker with first-hand knowledge of...

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