The subject of filmmaker Sepideh Farsi’s upcoming Cannes documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” the Palestinian artist and photojournalist Fatma Hassona, as well as her family, has allegedly been killed during an Israeli missile strike on her building in Gaza. Set to be featured as part of Cannes’ parallel section ACID, which is run by France’s Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema (l’ACID), the film follows Hassona as she captures the atrocities being committed in her homeland via her camera, as well as helping those who are grieving tremendous loss.
In a release shared with IndieWire, the filmmakers behind the project, as well as members of the ACID team said of Hassona, “Her smile was as magical as her tenacity: bearing witness, photographing Gaza, distributing food despite the bombs, mourning, and hunger. We heard her story, we rejoiced at each of her appearances to see her alive, we feared for her.”
Farsi shared the unfortunate news of Hassona’s death via the French publication Libération, in which she wrote, “She had just turned 25. I got to know her through a Palestinian friend in Cairo, while I was desperately searching for a way to reach Gaza, while hitting blocked roads, seeking the answer to a question both simple and complex. How does one survive in Gaza, under siege for all those years? What is the daily life of Palestinian people under war? What is it that Israel wishes to erase in this handful of square kilometers, with so many bombs and missiles?”
The Iranian filmmaker labeled Israel’s action as being in line with “genocide” and put the blame not only on its governing body, but all of the international “accomplices” involved in supporting what she sees as a campaign of terror against the Palestinian people. Farsi also shared an excerpt from one of Hassona’s poem, titled “The man who wore his eyes,” which reflects the overwhelming presence of death she faced, as well as the fullness of the life she lived. Please read it below.
Maybe I’m ushering in my death
now
Before the person standing in front of me loads
His elite sniper’s rifle
And it ends
And I end.
Silence.
