Vague Visages’ Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk review contains minor spoilers. Sepideh Farsi’s 2025 documentary features herself and Fatima Hassouna. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

In the history of modern warfare, it’s unprecedented for journalists to be banned from reporting in war zones, but footage of the genocidal atrocities in Gaza have still managed to make their way to the wider world. For nearly two years, reporters have covered the most documented genocide in history play out in real time over social media, even as internet connections in large parts of Palestine are all but non-existent. In Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, this is visible from the moment Iranian director Sepideh Farsi and the spirited young photojournalist Fatima Hassouna first connect over WhatsApp, their every discussion about life in a war zone interrupted by a disconnecting signal (Farsi had to document the war from overseas due to a denied entry attempt). There are few dialogue exchanges heard or seen with full clarity, even as Hassouna visits a friend’s house with a better signal to talk, the obfuscation of the Palestinian experience in this current moment being one of the objectives of the occupying forces.

This anti-cinematic quality, with Farsi only taking a break from filming her WhatsApp conversations to capture grainy Al Jazeera headlines contextualizing each conversation and footage of her cats, is a deliberate method to demonstrate the sheer difficulty of reporting from Gaza, the constant frustrations it causes as much the point as the war being discussed. It’s a method which I imagine will ensure Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk will have a comparatively limited appeal next to similarly urgent documentary works coming from Palestine, but the way in which it captures these barriers in communication with the wider world are a crucial inclusion in the growing number of cinematic perspectives emerging from the ground.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk Review: Related — EIFF 2025 Review: Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne’s ‘The Young Mother’s Home’

Hassouna, who was killed in an Israeli air strike prior to the film’s 2025 Cannes premiere, offered a fascinating perspective at odds with other reporting from the ground — an almost perverse optimism even as the death toll surpassed multiple tens of thousands. Even as she left her home to photograph the fallout from events around her, which are featured in Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk via stark, striking montage sequences, she remained undeterred by oppressive forces, choosing optimism as a defiant, radical form of resistance. The most memorable aspect of conversations between Hassouna and Farsi are the ways in which they explore and interrogate this worldview, and whether it’s possible to be maintained as they stay alert to the horrors around them. One couldn’t accuse the young reporter, just 25 years old at the time of her death, of being naive about the military occupation causing destruction and an alarming number of civilian casualties in her hometown — hell, one voice call even features grainy footage of an apartment block being bombed in the background. But Hassouna’s constant warmth and good humor, laughing even when faced with the direct impact of war crimes on camera, are as strong a coat of armor as any in Farsi’s documentary. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a film that manages to capture someone staying this mentally strong in the face of unbelievable adversity, right up to the final day of their life.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk Review: Related — EIFF 2025 Review: Jan-Ole Gerster’s ‘Islands’

Which isn’t to say Hassouna didn’t get emotional, as Farsi shows her reactions to bombings that have a direct impact on her family and friends. But mostly, the photojournalist refused to be contained within the geographical parameters set for her by Israeli forces who kept her in Palestine her whole life, as Hassouna’s optimism came from imagining a brighter future where she’d be able to travel, perhaps even to the Cannes Film Festival to see the premiere of Farsi’s documentary. There is a bittersweetness to the subject’s reactions to bombings, as viewers know that Hassouna was killed shortly thereafter, but she never resigned herself to pessimism even in the darkest of days. The young journalist goes multiple days without food and discusses the impact of bombings and the loss of people she knows, but Hassouna never loses hope that fortunes could change in a matter of moments, even when news reports suggest otherwise. 

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk Review: Related — EIFF 2025 Review: Ondine Viñao’s ‘Two Neighbors’

As a cinematic epitaph for an extraordinary young woman, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk more than captures the spirit of Fatima Hassouna. It’s a film grounded in horrors just out of every frame, which Farsi ensures that audiences never forget about. And yet, perhaps in an act of self-awareness that she might not survive to offer a further perspective, Hassouna ensured her boundless, defiant optimism in the face of a genocide was as crucial to her legacy as the photos she took from the frontlines. No technological faults can diminish the impact of such a personality.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) is a film and TV critic based in Manchester, England. By day, he interviews the great and the good of the film world for Zavvi, and by night, he criticizes their work as a regular reviewer at outlets including The Film Stage and Looper. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk Review: Related — Animation First 2025 Review: Michel Hazanavicius’ ‘The Most Precious of Cargoes’