The Courage to Witness, the Grace to Listen

Read Time:5 Minute, 28 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
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Genre: Documentary, War, Biographical
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director(s): Sepideh Farsi
Where to Watch: New York – November 5, 2025, exclusively at IFC CENTER, Los Angeles – November 14 at Laemmle Monica and Laemmle Glendale, Chicago – November 21 at Gene Siskel Film Center. National rollout will continue throughout the year

RAVING REVIEW: PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK arrives with a story already aching inside it — a young woman whose life mattered, whose art demanded attention, and whose humanity insists on being remembered. That insistence is the backbone of Sepideh Farsi’s documentary. This film does not dramatize war so much as live inside it, through phone screens and connections that refuse to break even when everything else around them does.

Two women speaking across a distance. Farsi, an Iranian filmmaker living in Paris, calls and texts with 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, who documents life in Gaza while living through the bombings and blockades she photographs. Their conversations — sometimes casual, sometimes trembling with urgency — form a portrait not of conflict as headlines describe it, but of someone who must survive it, second by second.

What gives the film its power is how daily life exists alongside devastation. Fatma jokes, worries about her family, checks in on friends, and then — just like that — resumes describing where the latest strike landed. She doesn’t flatten herself into tragedy. She lets us see hope, hunger, grief, sarcasm, and determination living in the same space. Her camera becomes the mirror through which she refuses to be erased. The film incorporates her photography not as punctuation, but as testimony — images framed with care by someone who understands that beauty is not absent during war, only much harder to keep safe.

The tension lies in how the relationship evolves. What begins as a conversation about art becomes a lifeline, a documentation of a young woman trying to hold onto creativity in a place determined to crush it. There’s a sense that the film is being written faster than anyone can reflect on it — that Farsi must let the present unfold without trying to impose structure or remove the fear that creeps into every call.

The film also makes space for discomfort. Farsi’s perspective, physically removed from the crisis, introduces moments where contrast becomes almost painful. There are times when her questions — caring but distanced — reveal the impossibility of truly grasping what Fatma is enduring on the other side of the call. The documentary doesn’t hide this imbalance; instead, it lets that unease become part of the truth. When safety and survival aren’t shared, even compassion can feel insufficient.

It’s rare for a documentary to capture the moment when its entire meaning shifts. While the audience enters knowing the outcome, the film itself moves forward with hope still alive inside it. We watch dreams evolve and shrink. At one point, wanting to travel the world becomes wanting chicken and chocolate again — a heartbreaking reduction of possibility that says more than any speech could.

As that hope grows more fragile, the film’s urgency grows sharper. Every laugh Fatma shares begins to feel like a rebellion. Every photograph she takes feels like proof of existence. The documentary doesn’t rely on narration to frame meaning — Fatma gives the story its voice, its purpose, and its heartbeat. Her request — to leave an impact the world won’t ignore — lands like a promise the film fulfills. She refuses to be just another number, and this movie makes sure she isn’t.

That fulfillment is where the film earns its emotional weight. PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK isn’t an overview of a conflict — it is the preservation of a person. It traces the shape of a single life in a place where life is constantly threatened, showing audiences not the scale of loss but the specificity of it. A sister. A daughter. A new wife. A journalist whose lens never stopped telling the truth. There’s a grace in how the film handles grief — not softening the horror, but choosing to celebrate what Fatma brought into the world. The result is neither exploitative nor sentimental. It feels honest — and necessary.

In a year filled with politically charged narratives, PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK separates itself by grounding the political inside the personal. It never lets audiences forget that maps or leaders do not define conflict, but by the ordinary people whose futures are rewritten without warning. This is a film that will stay with viewers — not because of the horrifying statistics surrounding Gaza, but because of who Fatma was despite them. Her fierce compassion. Her humor. The bravery in her creativity. The dreams beyond, and this film allows them to reach further than the world had allowed her to.

PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK is a testament to artistry, endurance, and a young woman who insisted on living fully even while the world attempted to dim her light. The tragedy is immense. The legacy is brighter. And this film ensures that brightness will not go silent.

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[photo courtesy of KINO LORBER, RÊVES D'EAU PRODUCTIONS, 24 IMAGES]

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