Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

Driven to make a film that would bear witness to the escalating violence against Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military following October 7, but unable to enter Gaza, filmmaker and photographer Sepideh Farsi decided to turn her camera on one woman. Seen entirely in smartphone correspondence, photojournalist Fatma Hassouna becomes the subject of this documentary, and our guide to the horror of living under siege. Embodying improbable fortitude, warmth, and calm in the eye of the storm, Fatma is an unforgettable screen presence, followed over the course of a year as she experiences one loss after another. Visually spare yet emotionally expansive, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk intercuts the evolution of Sepideh and Fatma’s relationship with footage of the destruction on the ground in Gaza. It’s a work of great intimacy that will stand, now and always, as an unerasable record of a life. A Kino Lorber release.