Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

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MEDIA RELEASE:  ‍

‍PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK OPENS IN CINEMAS ON NOVEMBER 20 2025

Hi Gloss Entertainment is delighted to announce the Australian theatrical release of Sepideh Farsi’s acclaimed documentary, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. One of the major breakout films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and an early contender for the Best Documentary Oscar, the film will be opening around Australia on November 20.

Told through a series of conversations between director Sepideh Farsi and Fatma Hassona, the documentary tells the story of Hassona, a 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet who devoted her life to documenting daily life in Gaza under Israeli invasion.

On April 16, a day following the announcement that the film was selected to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, Hassona and six family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their house, sparking global condemnation of the attack.

The Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to Hassona, stating: The Festival de Cannes wishes to express its dread and profound sadness at this tragedy that has moved and shocked the whole world. Although a film is a small thing in the face of such a tragedy, the screening of Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk on May 15 in Cannes as part of ACID will be, in addition to the message of the film itself, a way to honor the memory of Fatma Hassona.

On the first day of Cannes, more than 350 film industry figures including Yorgos Lanthimos, Pedro Almodóvar, Alfonso Cuarón, Xavier Dolan, Cynthia Nixon, David Cronenberg and Ralph Fiennes signed a letter condemning Fatma’s death and the industry’s passivity on No Other Land co-director Hamdan Ballal being attacked by Israeli settlers at the end of March.

Following the premiere at Cannes in the ACID program, the film went on to screen at prestigious international festivals including Karlovy Vary, TIFF and the New York Film Festival. Locally, it has screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival and the New Zealand International Film Festival in August.‍

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In 2024, acclaimed Iranian director Sepideh Farsi tried to enter Gaza to document the living conditions amidst Israel's war on Palestine. Unable to secure a passage to the city via Cairo, Farsi befriended Palestinian refugee in Cairo who introduced her to Fatma Hosanna, a young photojournalist and poet who spent her days documenting the conditions in which Palestinians are forced to exist.

Told through a series of video calls between Fatma and Sepideh, Hasonna paints an urgent visual diary of life in Gaza. Under the constant barrage of Israeli missile fire, Fatma embodies the resilience, strength and hope of her people.

On 16 April 2025, the day after it was announced the film was to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, an Israeli missile killed Hassona and her family in what was alleged to have been a targeted assassination. 

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is both a celebration of an inspirational life and an urgent first-hand account of the invasion of Palestine.