The last time Sepideh Farsi spoke to Fatma Hassona, the 25-year-old protagonist of her Gaza documentary, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” it was to inform her that the film would be screened in Cannes, during the world’s most prestigious film festival.
The next day, on April 16, Hassona, her pregnant sister and several other relatives were killed by an Israeli missile strike on their home in northern Gaza – an attack the exiled Iranian filmmaker instantly suspected may have been linked to Hassona’s journalism, the film, or both.
At the film’s Cannes premiere on Thursday, part of the ACID sidebar that runs parallel with the main festival, an emotional Farsi told the audience she now had proof that the photojournalist had indeed been targeted.
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Farsi cited an investigation by Forensic Architecture, a UK-based research group that has previously investigated the West Bank killing of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
“Two missiles fired from a drone sliced through her building and exploded on the floor where Fatma lived, as they had been programmed to do,” she said. “It was a targeted attack.”
FRANCE 24 was able to consult the report by Forensic Architecture, which states that, “The missiles dropped by the Israeli military specifically targeted the Hassouna family’s apartment on Floor 2” of the five-floor building.
Contacted by Le Monde in April, the Israeli military said the strike targeted a “Hamas operative” who was implicated in “attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians”, adding that “precautions were taken to avoid civilian casualties”.
More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, the deadliest toll on record for a military conflict, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Journalists reporting from Gaza have repeatedly warned that they are being deliberately targeted – allegations denied by the Israeli army.
‘My eyes in Gaza’
“Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” tells the story of Gaza’s plight through filmed video conversations between Hassona and Farsi, offering rare insight into a war that has ravaged the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 52,000 people, most of them women and children, according to health officials.
Read moreLouder than bombs: Cannes screens tribute to Gaza photojournalist who refused a quiet death
As Farsi describes, Hassona became “my eyes in Gaza (...) fiery and full of life. I filmed her laughs, her tears, her hopes and her despair". The film's Cannes premiere drew tears and a lengthy standing ovation.
This year's festival has opened against a backdrop of mounting outrage at the ongoing war, which began in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 were killed, most of them civilians, and more than 250 people were taken hostage.
On the eve of the festival, “Schindler’s List” actor Ralph Fiennes and Hollywood star Richard Gere were among more than 380 figures to sign an op-ed slamming the film industry’s silence over “genocide” in Gaza. The text paid tribute to Hassona, as did Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche on the festival’s opening night, which saw her read excerpts from a poem by the Palestinian photojournalist.
Speaking to FRANCE 24 ahead of the festival, Farsi lamented a collective failure to confront and sanction Israel’s far-right government over the ongoing war and its stated aim to expel Gaza’s population.
“Just like there was no justification for what happened on October 7, nothing can justify what is happening in Gaza,” Farsi said.
“We cannot just stand by and let the massacre go on,” she added. “What will we tell our children when they ask, ‘Why did you do nothing?’ We cannot pretend we didn’t know.”
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