Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

This film’s title is what the ever-smiling young Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassouna suggests doing on the streets of Gaza City under Israeli bombardment. She communicates on her cell phone with Sepideh Farsi, an activist and filmmaker exiled from Iran decades ago. Working from Cairo (no one can enter Gaza after October 7), Farsi builds her sobering narrative from a year’s worth of phone captures, from first meeting Hassouna in April 2024 to Hassouna’s preparations in April 2025 to attend the film’s Cannes premiere. Farsi’s film is as elementary and as powerful as a documentary can be, and the postscript is devastating.