An Israeli missile strike in Gaza Wednesday killed a Palestinian photojournalist featured in a documentary set to premiere in Cannes, France, in May.
The journalist Fatma Hassona, 25, was known for her photographs of the civilian casualties of Israeli military actions, died in her home, along with several of her close family members, the film’s director Sepideh Farsi told Deadline.
Hassona had just gotten engaged a few months ago. Farsi had spoken to Hassona and her family recently. “One of the sisters was pregnant,” she said. “On a video call two days ago, she showed me her belly. It’s so horrible and devastating.”
Hassona was killed right after learning her film Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk was selected for a parallel section of Cannes Film Festival, ACID. Farsi—whose film credits include the Siren and Red Rose—was in the middle of figuring out how to arrange Hassona’s travel to the film festival. She said Hassona was very concerned about being able to return to Gaza right after the event.
Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk is a 110-minute documentary film that follows a nearly year-long exchange that took place between Farsi and Hassona after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, 2023.
“This film is a window, opened through a miraculous encounter with Fatem. Offering glimpses of the ongoing massacre of the Palestinians,” Farsi said in the film’s description on ACID’s website. “She has become my eyes in Gaza, and I, her connection to the outside world.”
Farsi told Deadline that she wondered if her film made Hassona a target.
Hassona is the latest Palestinian journalist to die since the war began more than a year ago. In response to the most recent airstrikes, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, issued the statement, “Palestinian journalists continue to do heroic work, paying a heavy price; 170 have been killed to date.” The UN estimates that a total of 209 journalists have been killed in Gaza while on duty or at home.
Last year, attendees of the Cannes Film Festival used the red carpet to make a statement about the Israel-Hamas war. Actress Leila Bekhti was photographed wearing a pin in the colors of the Palestinian flag en route to a screening of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Laura Blajman-Kadar, a survivor of the October 7th massacre, wore a sash that said “Bring Them Home” over a yellow dress with pictures of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas.
ACID, the organization behind the independent film festival featuring Put Your Soul On Your Hand and Walk, issued a statement Thursday reflecting on what it was like to encounter Hassona during the consideration process: “Her smile was as magical as her tenacity: bearing witness, photographing Gaza, distributing food despite bombs, grief, and hunger.” It added that Hassona’s death makes it more imperative that the documentary reach a mainstream audience, stating, “This is a different film than the one we will carry, support, and present in every theater, starting with Cannes.”
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