What is really going on in Gaza? Sepideh Farsi and Fatma Hassona team up to show the real ongoing events of the city Gaza during the siege of Israeli military airstrikes.
Through the app called “Whatsapp”, a social media, instant messaging, and Voice over IP service that connect people from all around the world, Fatma Hassona feeds information of current events, pictures, videos, and real-life experiences to Sepideh Farsi, who then compiled them all together to make Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.
What starts as day-to-day conversations between the two, gradually becomes more hectic, and more horrific as the film goes on. Hassona becomes more than a Palestinian photojournalist. She becomes a witness to life insisting itself into being.
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is more than a film documenting what life is like in Gaza during the Israeli invasion, but a memorial of Fatma Hassona and her family. April 16, 2025, Fatma Hassona and her family tragically lost their lives to an airstrike. While Hassona is no longer physically with us, her memory, and her work infamously still live on, serving as an example of the lives and experiences of many people in Gaza. Throughout the film, Hassona’s resilient spirit, and humanity is an enduring testimony to who she was as a person, or rather as a warrior I should say.
Furthermore, the film raises a lot of questions of humanity and the importance of having it. We see a generation forced into a seemingly never-ending cycle of war, starvation, and resistance. The film invites us as viewers to be in this uncomfortable position, watching horrific events unfold, inevitably to learn and understand the real-life tragedies the people in Gaza are facing.
To be completely transparent, this film raises a lot of emotional responses because of the intensity of being thrown into such a brutal world. Especially because a lot of the footage is from the up close perspective of Hassana through her photography and video calls with Farsi. However seeing as this is a real account of what is going on in Gaza, it is a very important watch. Honoring Hassona and many others who faced the brutality and harsh conditions in Gaza.
This film will serve as an account of the events in Gaza for many years to come.
Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk has played at film festivals including World Premiere – Cannes ACID, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival. The film was recently shown at the Vogue Theatre on November 9th.
