Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” begins with a WhatsApp video call to a Palestinian photojournalist. Her name was Fatma Hassouna — or “Fatem” if you knew her well enough.
Beginning in April 2024, Farsi called Hassouna every day for a year. Her goal was simple: to document the horrors of Israel’s genocide in Gaza through Hassouna’s perspective, both as a journalist and a Palestinian. Through shoddy internet connection and time zone differences, Farsi and Hassouna developed a bond that transcended the typical director-subject dynamic. As Hassouna’s vibrant smile pierces through Farsi’s phone and the cinematic screen, the two share their love for poetry, art, travel and life, in spite of daily bombardment.
But one day, Hassouna didn’t pick up. On April 16, 2025, Hassouna and six members of her family were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their home in northern Gaza — just a day after Farsi’s film was selected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The film has since engaged audiences at film festivals worldwide, with its latest stop being the New York Film Festival.
WSN sat down with Farsi to discuss the film’s impact on political consciousness about Palestine and how Hassouna’s story is representative of the greater Palestinian experience.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WSN: After two years of genocide, what role can cinema play in elevating stories like Hassouna’s, and what impact can film have on political awareness?
Farsi: The film I’ve made doesn’t have the pretension to be of historical value. It’s a very personal experience. But it has the ability to convey something that is unusual — and that is the rehumanizing of the Palestinian identity through Fatem. She was so magnetic and strong in the energy she was emitting through the image and to the viewers. It really puts a face on many stories in that sense. It’s a very raw and direct sharing of the Gaza experience in this last episode, which is similar to all that has been going on for more than a century, in essence.
At the same time, it is very intimate. It’s very unique because she and her personality are so vibrant. This is why the film is so impactful. I’m still disappointed — I wanted more changes, more of a shifting paradigm. But it is still changing. Perhaps this could bring people to understand how similar we and the Palestinians are with one another. Fatem could be my cousin.
WSN: In the film, Hassouna often expresses fearlessness and embodies the Palestinian concept of sumud, or steadfastness. Was there a call or moment — even one left out of the film — that particularly stood out to you?
Farsi: I don’t think so. Over the course of that year, she gravitated across a spectrum of hope and despair. The despair was linked to fatigue, which in turn was linked to the lack of food and the bombings. So there were moments in which she would be in lower spirits, but she had this thing where she would, at some points, not disappear fully because we were still exchanging messages every day. She had the self-discipline to want to appear only if she was fit for it.
WSN: How did Hassouna’s targeting by the Israeli military impact you personally, and also as a filmmaker documenting her story?
Farsi: As a human being — not necessarily a friend, but a global citizen — I find her targeting and by extension the targeting of Palestinian journalists at large to be extremely dangerous, deranging and disturbing. These protocols are relentlessly breached and blatantly violated by many countries, Israel among them. As an Iranian, I come from a country with a dictatorship — one of the worst in the world. Despite Israel calling itself the only democracy in the Middle East, it is practically doing the same thing as the Iranian regime. That is what disturbs me.
As an artist, it obviously had an impact. I left my country and am living in exile precisely because of censorship — I cannot go back to Iran because I want to create my art freely, and because I fight for journalists who try to speak out against dictatorship. So how could I not be deranged, perturbed, upset or revolted at the killings of journalists — over 240? Killing a journalist is one of the worst things you could do. It is silencing a testimony, and what I tried to do in this film is precisely the contrary — I was trying to give a voice to those who had been silenced through Fatem.
WSN: With two years of genocide and little political progress, how does the film’s screening at this moment shape public perception, as well as your own view of the film and Hassouna’s story?
Farsi: There is obviously a timely element about the coincidence of this film being screened in New York at this particular time. In fact, the film’s nationwide premiere at Cannes was on May 15, the 77th anniversary of the Nakba. I certainly didn’t decide the day of the screening, but beyond the symbolic coincidences, I hope it will make people think more and urge them to engage in action for Palestine, or at least to push for the massacres and the genocide to stop. We need justice. Fatem was such an amazingly vibrant person, and I haven’t seen anybody who has seen the film and was not engaged with her.
WSN: The New York Film Festival has recently highlighted more Palestinian stories, including your film and Kamal Aljafari’s ‘With Hasan in Gaza’ this year. Do you see a shift in how the Palestinian cause is being represented and received?
Farsi: Of course. It used to be taboo and there has been a shift because public opinion has also changed. The false rhetoric behind talking about Palestine as taboo or antisemitic still exists, but I think people are coming to their senses to distinguish being against genocide and being antisemitic. The separations are becoming clearer, and I think we still need more clarity. But it is coming slowly. It’s a bit late, but it’s good that it has started and that more films are programmed.
WSN: Given the heightened awareness and activism around Palestine on United States college campuses, how do you view the importance of engaging university communities in this conversation?
Farsi: Universities and colleges are the ground on which the elites of this country are trained. From my perspective, none of the breaches that have transpired in the U.S. should have happened. Mahmoud Khalil and other students should not have been detained. These are grave and serious incidents. The first student ever arrested on campus for pro-Palestinian activism was the beginning of the end. I feel very alarmed as an Iranian dissident and as somebody who has been jailed when I hear about these things. Perhaps, these kinds of films are important to show the administrations of universities to further enact change.
Contact Yezen Saadah at [email protected].