Exiled Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s moving record of her long-distance phone conversations with photojournalist Fatma Hassona in Gaza are the beating heart of her documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. Following its Cannes debut, the film receives its UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025.
In 2024, Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi attempted to enter Gaza from Egypt in order to document events which had been ongoing there since 7th October 2023. She was denied entry, but through a Palestinian whom she met there, she made contact with Fatma Hassona, a 24-year-old photojournalist living in Gaza. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is the result.
The film consists almost entirely of video calls over the course of a year between Hassona, trapped in Gaza, and Farsi, travelling to several cities around the world promoting or making her films. The two women, a generation apart, talk about what is happening day to day in Gaza; Fatma and the photographs which she sends across are Farsi’s eyes on the ground in the Middle East, and Farsi has the public platform at film festivals to share Fatma’s reports and raise the profile of the situation at events she attends.
Sepideh Farsi gently questions Fatma about her daily life under the bombings, and we can feel her helplessness as she hears what has happened that day. Farsi punctuates the film with images sent to her by Fatma directly from the streets of Gaza, or with snippets from the 24 hour news cycle on Western television channels.
In a different context, watching someone else’s video calls on an (understandably) dodgy internet link for almost 2 hours would not make a particularly interesting film. But the immediacy and reality of the conversations at the current time mean that it’s difficult not to watch.
Fatma Hassona’s presence is dynamic. She is absolutely the kind of person you would wish to meet in real life. She’s funny, interesting, a communicator; she dreams of leaving Gaza to visit other places in the world, but would always want to return home, to where her family and friends are. Knowing the perilous situation in which she lives, her bravery in talking about what’s happening around her with such clarity is astounding.
Each time Farsi dials Fatma and waits for her to pick up, the tension is obvious. Will she have any internet today? Have the bombs reached her home? Is she even still there? The anxiety is felt by everyone watching. Then when Fatma answers the call, the joy at seeing her face and that beautiful smile again is such a relief.
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a moving tribute not just to Fatma, but to everyone who has suffered, and who continues to suffer, in Gaza and elsewhere. Print, broadcast and other media journalism can only report so much. Fatma’s courage in describing events first hand, while experiencing attacks and starvation herself, brings a different perspective.