Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk

Throughout 2024 and into the spring of this year, exiled Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi makes regular check-ins with Fatma Hassona, a 25-year-old photographer, poet and songwriter, living with her family under Israeli siege in Gaza. The internet is patchy, and bombing is a constant, but Sepideh is surprised and entranced by Fatma, whose radiant beauty and beaming smile seem entirely at odds with the adversity of her circumstances. In the midst of death and destruction, this young Palestinian artist is somehow able to embrace life, hope, and creativity. But for how long can she endure?

Hassona’s photographs from the bombed out city, as well as examples of her poetry and songwriting, are interspersed with brief news clips and the two women’s conversations in this tremendously affecting film.

A tremendously moving portrait of resistance under siege.

Isaac Feldberg, rogerebert.com

The film proves stirring in its capacity for hope against all odds, while also placing on full display the cost of occupation, portraying the full extent of the lives and dreams dashed by war.

Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

Both a joy and a heartache… At a time when we risk growing numb and feeling overwhelmed by helplessness [the film] reconnects us with the tragedy of individual lives being wiped out by an indefensible campaign of destruction.

Philip Concannon, Sight & Sound