PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK

West Coast Premiere | France, Palestine | 2025 | Documentary | 110 min | In English

Directed by: Sepideh Farsi
Written by: Sepideh Farsi
Produced by: Sepideh Farsi (Rêves d’Eau Productions), Gérard Giraudet & Farid Rezkallah (24Images)
Cinematography: Sepideh Farsi
Original Score: Cinna Peyghamy
Film Editing: Farahnaz Sharifi, Sepideh Farsi
Cast: Sepideh Farsi, Fatma Hassona
International Sales: Cercamon
US Distributor: Kino Lorber
US Release date: November 5, 2025

Synopsis

Denied entrance into Rafah to film the war in Gaza, director Sepideh Farsi is introduced to Fatma Hassona, a 24-year-old aspiring photojournalist living in Gaza. Thus begins a year-long series of video calls between an Iranian filmmaker in Paris, and a radiant, talented, astonishingly optimistic young woman simply trying to live her life as the bombs fall all around her. Tragically, just one day after the announcement that Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk was selected for Cannes, Fatma and six members of her family were killed in an Israeli strike on their home. More than just a subject, Fatma was a veritable collaborator on this film, her luminous, soulful photographs recounting the day-to-day reality of this war-without-end and rendering her loss all the more painful.

Director’s biography

Born in Tehran, Sepideh Farsi started photographing political protests at a young age before discovering the cinema at 16. That same year, she was arrested and spent nearly a year in prison. Upon her release, she was forced to leave the country to pursue her studies in Paris. After studying math, she began making art videos and award-winning documentaries and narrative features screened in Locarno, Rotterdam and Toronto. Her films include Tehran Without Permission (2009), Red Rose (2014), 7 Voiles (2017), and I Will Cross Tomorrow (2023). The Siren, an animated anti-war manifesto, was the opening film of the Panorama section at the 2023 Berlinale. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk premiered in this year’s Cannes’ ACID sidebar.