SOPS FILM NIGHT - PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK
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Documentary film directed by Sepideh Farsi, depicting life in Gaza during the ongoing Israeli military campaign, captured through Farsi's video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna.
A co-production between France, Palestine and Iran, the documentary premiered at the ACID parallel section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 15 May. It was theatrically released in France on 24 September by New Story.
Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike alongside nine members of her family on 16 April 2025, the day after the film was selected for the ACID section. The festival released an official statement expressing condolences and criticizing the ongoing violence in Gaza.
During early 2024, Sepideh Farsi, an Iranian filmmaker living in exile in Paris,travels to Cairo hoping to cross the Egyptian-Palestinian border and document the ongoing war in Gaza, but is prevented to enter Rafah due to the Blockade of the Gaza Strip. imposed by Israel.
Farsi, instead, documents the war through video calls interviews with photojournalist Fatima Hassouni, who lives alongside her family in a small apartment in the devastated Northern Gaza. Describing the harsh living conditions imposed to the Gaza population and the civilians casualties, including the killing of her own relatives, Hassouna is constantly interrupted by poor internet connection. The video calls are intertwined with Hassouna's photojournalism work, which was mainly focused in the children's suffering, and news reports providing context of the international response to the ongoing genocide.
As the war intensifies in late 2024, Hassouna continues to documents successive aerial bombings and military activity near her home in Gaza City, which resulted in the death of friends and her displacement to a shelter nearby.
On 15 April 2025, Farsi share the news of the film's selection to the2025 Cannees Film Festival and Hassouna express her desire to attend its world premiere. Farsi ends the call requesting Hassouna's passport. On the following morning, 16 April 2025, Hassouna and nine relatives were killed in their sleep by an Israeli airstrike on their home.