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Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

Play trailer 2:09 Poster for Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk 2025 1h 52m Documentary Play Trailer Watchlist
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98% Tomatometer 53 Reviews Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Ratings
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk offers an intimate, first-hand perspective on life under siege in Gaza, captured through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Combining raw immediacy with deep humanity, the film captures daily life during the conflict through the eyes and unwaveringly optimistic presence of Fatma, a talented photographer whose generation is trapped in an endless cycle of war, famine, and resistance. Her conversations with Farsi bring us into the heart of the conflict, even while their physical distance underscores the dire situation inside Gaza. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is an essential document that now stands as a heartfelt memorial and final testament: Fatma and her family were tragically killed by a targeted Israeli airstrike on April 16, one day after the film was announced as a selection of the Cannes Film Festival.
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Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

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Critics Consensus

Finding moments of joy and levity even under dire circumstances thanks to its endlessly compelling subject, Fatma Hassona, this documentary helps put a deeply human face on a wide scale tragedy.

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Critics Reviews

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Richard Brody The New Yorker Dec 9
Farsi hasn’t made a rhetorical film of persuasion -- anyone who needs a name and a face to be moved by reports of killings is beyond persuading -- but a personal memorial for a friend and a public archive of that friend’s work. Go to Full Review
G. Allen Johnson San Francisco Chronicle Nov 24
4/4
Simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, it is one of the best movies of the year, despite being made on a shoestring budget under challenging circumstances. Go to Full Review
Robert Abele Los Angeles Times Nov 19
You’ll feel loss, but the afterimage of this singular woman’s belief in finding light is what will burn. Go to Full Review
Javier Ocaña El Pais (Spain) Feb 13
The film, more of a search for something uncertain than a fully formed thesis (as, in fact, most documentaries should be), possesses a human expressiveness that overshadows the simplicity of the images with its powerful emotions. [Full review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
Jennie Kermode Eye for Film Jan 22
4/5
The film doesn’t answer every common question that people have in this situation, but it does provide some context. Go to Full Review
Joanne Laurier World Socialist Web Site Jan 19
4/4
Fatima lives with her family in a small apartment in one of the most devastated areas of northern Gaza Access to basic necessities such as food, water and electricity is highly unreliable; over time, shortages worsen and Fatima … "eating like animals" Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Anthony L Nov 19 The directors questioning left the lot to be desired. Using a phone to record her video calls instead of just screen recording. That being said, heartbreaking. To watch her say her dream is to travel the world to then less than a year later here biggest dream was to taste chicken and chocolate again. See more Heidi B Nov 15 Not an easy watch, but a meaningful one. See more fox N @foxninetailed 6d I was drawn to the film’s premise, and Fatima Hassouna is a deeply compelling subject. However, the execution is difficult to overlook. The director’s questions often feel naïve and out of place, undermining the gravity of the story rather than deepening it. Most troubling is her attempt to draw parallels between the catastrophic reality in Gaza and her own narrative of Iranians in exile. The comparison feels profoundly misguided and lacking in self-awareness, given the stark differences in lived experience. The inclusion of questions about the hijab is also puzzling, as they seem irrelevant and distracting. Ultimately, the film comes across less as a thoughtful portrayal of its subject and more as an imposition of the director’s perspective onto someone else’s tragedy. The result feels tone-deaf and ethically questionable. See more Steve B @Film_Man Feb 26 ​Watching Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a harrowing exercise in heartbreak. We see Fatma Hassona not as a statistic, but as a young woman whose smile is a source of pure, uplifting joy. Her desires are agonisingly simple, to walk in nature or to taste a single piece of chocolate.Yet we watch that optimism erode under the agonising weight of forced starvation and the dwindling access to clean water. This is not just the collateral damage of war; it is the systematic destruction of every building, an attempt to erase the very existence and memory of the Palestinian people from their land. To witness her light dim before the murder of her and her entire family is to confront the most brutal question of our time: what sort of world allow such beautiful vibrant innocent souls to be killed? See more Marisca M @Tatjana Feb 9 This film is an absolute must-see. It gives a complete insight into the lives of people in Gaza fading away bit by bit and body by body in the wake of a genocide. See more Adam S @Conceaniese Jan 3 Only the SOUL-LESS would enjoy it See more Read all reviews
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

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Movie Info

Synopsis Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk offers an intimate, first-hand perspective on life under siege in Gaza, captured through video calls between director Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Combining raw immediacy with deep humanity, the film captures daily life during the conflict through the eyes and unwaveringly optimistic presence of Fatma, a talented photographer whose generation is trapped in an endless cycle of war, famine, and resistance. Her conversations with Farsi bring us into the heart of the conflict, even while their physical distance underscores the dire situation inside Gaza. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is an essential document that now stands as a heartfelt memorial and final testament: Fatma and her family were tragically killed by a targeted Israeli airstrike on April 16, one day after the film was announced as a selection of the Cannes Film Festival.
Director
Sepideh Farsi, Fatma Hassona
Producer
Sepideh Farsi
Screenwriter
Sepideh Farsi
Distributor
Kino Lorber
Production Co
Rêves d’eau Productions
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 5, 2025, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Dec 16, 2025
Box Office (Gross USA)
$54.2K
Runtime
1h 52m
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