When PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK, Sepideh Farsi’s documentary about her conversations with photojournalist Fatima Hassouna during the war in Gaza following the October 7th attacks, premiered earlier this year in Cannes, the event was marred by horrific tragedy.
The day after the film was announced as one of those playing as part of the Cannes Festival’s ACID parallel section, Hassouna and six members of her family were killed in a targeted Israeli strike. It is thus impossible to watch PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK as anything other than an untimely eulogy. At the time of its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the situation in Gaza has only grown more dire.
Farsi, an Iranian documentary film director living in Paris and Athens after spending time in prison during the 1981–1982 Iran massacres, went to Cairo in April 2024 to film Palestinian refugees. There, someone pointed her towards Hassouna, who was brilliantly capturing life on the ground in Gaza. Since one could not enter Gaza and the other could not leave, PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK emerged from video calls between the two women over almost a year. The film is almost entirely comprised of these recorded calls from Farsi’s perspective, though Hassouna’s photography and news reports are interspersed throughout, providing additional perspectives and context.
“Hassouna’s smile is the film’s defining image, even as it is captured through unsteady connections. However, building the film around such low-quality and repetitive footage has not made the conversations any less engaging.”
The film’s title is derived from Hassouna’s description of what it is like to go out when the bombings are omnipresent. She and the family members who appear onscreen with her are visibly shaken by strikes occurring mere blocks away – at points, Hassouna turns her screen to show columns of white smoke where a building stood moments before – yet what comes through is an irrepressible, indefatigable optimism. Hassouna’s smile is the film’s defining image, even as it is captured through unsteady connections. However, building the film around such low-quality and repetitive footage has not made the conversations any less engaging.
Farsi is a warm but sharp journalist, pulling no punches and enquiring into Hassouna’s life, habits, and religious beliefs with a tenacity verging on tactlessness (though this may be an impression gathered from watching UK interviewers and interactions, who – in stereotype and sometimes in reality – tend to tiptoe around sensitive topics rather than seek to engage with honesty). At times, these questions feel too much like luxuries when life and death are on the line. But by the end, it is clear these seemingly trivial qualities are woven into the fabric of every life.
PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK is not a neutral film by any stretch of the imagination, but it should not be. Farsi’s documentary is urgent, heart-wrenching, and deeply personal, profiling a single life among the tens of thousands lost too soon.