‘I thought she'd survive': Story of slain Gaza photojournalist touches Cannes

Al Arabiya

16-05-2025

A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival Thursday.
As the cinema lights came back on, film maker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute.
'To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,' Farsi said.
'There are still children to save. It must be done fast,' the exiled Iranian filmmaker added.
With Israel banning foreign media from entering the besieged Palestinian territory, Farsi last year reached out to Hassouna through video call, and turned more than 200 days of conversations into the documentary 'Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.'
In often disjointed discussions due to bad internet connection, Hassouna smiles widely and bravely says she is ok.
She recounts how she dreams of eating chicken amid dire food shortages, how she lost 14 relatives including a one-year-old in Israeli bombardment, and what she photographed that day.
In one of her many pictures edited into the film, a little girl laughs on her father's lap in front of a tower block reduced to rubble.
But in another, a boy aims a water hose at the bloodied pavement, trying to clean away the remains of his own family.
'Normal people'
A day after Hassouna was told the documentary had been selected for a sidebar section at the world's most prestigious film festival, an Israeli missile pummelled her home in northern Gaza, killing her and 10 relatives.
Israel has claimed it was targeting Palestinian militant group Hamas.
'Why would you kill someone and decimate an entire family just because she was taking photos?' Farsi told AFP.
'They were normal people. Her father was a taxi driver, she was a photographer, her sister was a painter and her little brother was 10 years old,' said Farsi.
'My heart goes out to her mother, who lost six of her children, her husband and her home.'
On Thursday, British filmmaker Ken Loach -- a double Palme d'Or winner -- on X called on people to honor Hassouna and fellow Palestinian journalists 'who gave their lives to bear witness to mass murder.'
Tens of thousands have been killed in Gaza and an aid blockade threatens famine, while Israeli leaders continue to express a desire to empty the territory of Palestinians as part of the war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
Reporters Without Borders estimates around 200 journalists have been killed in 18 months of Israeli strikes on Gaza.
'Reality caught up with us'
As the Gaza death toll mounts, with rescuers saying 120 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Thursday alone, the conflict has cast a shadow over Cannes.
Several actors have walked its red carpet wearing Palestinian flags pinned to their jackets, while others have sported a yellow ribbon for Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
Exiled Gazan film makers Arab and Tarzan Nasser will on Monday screen 'Once Upon a Time in Gaza,' a portrait of two friends set in 2007, the year Hamas started tightening its grip on the territory.
On the eve of the festival, 'Schindler's List' actor Ralph Fiennes and Hollywood star Richard Gere were among more than 380 figures to slam what they see as silence over 'genocide' in Gaza.
'The English Patient' actor Juliette Binoche, who heads the main competition jury, paid homage to Hassouna on opening night.
Sepideh said she had believed until the very end that Hassouna 'would survive, that she would come (to Cannes), that the war would stop.
'But reality caught up with us,' she said.