Ahead of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony, more than 350 actors, directors, and producers signed an open letter condemning the killing of the Palestinian artist Fatma Hassona and calling out “industry passivity” and “silence” in response to her death. The Palestinian photojournalist, who had spent the last 18 months documenting the devastation of Israel’s war on Gaza, is also the star of Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a new documentary by Sepideh Farsi premiering at Cannes later this week. The letter, released on May 12 and signed by industry names like Yorgos Lanthimos, Pedro Almodóvar, Alfonso Cuarón, Xavier Dolan, Hannah Einbinder, Cynthia Nixon, David Cronenberg, and Ralph Fiennes, highlighted filmmakers’ responsibility not to turn away from stories like Hassona’s. “For Fatma, for all those who die in indifference. Cinema has a duty to carry their messages, to reflect our societies,” the letter reads. Although outspoken about many political causes, Juliette Binoche, this year’s jury president, did not sign the letter. When asked why at the festival’s opening press conference, she told journalists, “You will maybe understand it a little later.”
Hassona was 25 years old and just about to get married when she was killed along with ten members of her family in an Israeli strike in Northern Gaza on April 16. She was planning to travel to Cannes for the opening of Farsi’s documentary. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, which captures daily life in Palestine while under siege, had already been selected for Cannes in the L’ACID (Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion) section of the festival when the director learned of Hasson’s death. As Farsi told Deadline, quoted by the Guardian, Hassona “became my eyes in Gaza … fiery and full of life. I filmed her laughs, her tears, her hopes and her depression.” The war in Gaza has been the deadliest conflict for journalists in recent history, with some estimating more than 200 reporters killed — many of whom were deliberately targeted by Israel — since October 2023. Following the announcement of Hassona’s killing, a quote from her social media circulated online: “If I die, I want a loud death … I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”
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The open letter also cites the “lack of support” from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for Hamdan Ballal, a co-director of No Other Land, after he was injured in a brutal attack in the West Bank just days after winning the Oscar for Best Documentary. “We are ashamed of such passivity,” says the letter. “Why is it that cinema, a breeding ground for socially committed works, seems to be so indifferent to the horror of reality and the oppression suffered by our sisters and brothers?”
L’ACID recognized how Hassona’s death has fundamentally changed the documentary. “We had watched and selected a film where this young woman’s life force was nothing short of miraculous. Now that she is no longer with us, it is no longer the same film that we will carry, support, and present in all movie theaters, starting with Cannes.” Farsi told Libération that she has incorporated this into her film by adding an ending scene including their very last exchange. The director tells Hassona about the film’s selection by L’ACID and asks whether she’ll come to France for the premiere. Despite never having been allowed to leave her homeland, Hassona agrees to try.
Farsi has also organized a three-day exhibition dedicated to Hassona’s photographs at l’hôtel Majestic during the film festival. She’s reportedly envisioning bringing the exhibition along with Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, which will be distributed by New Story, as it opens around the world. “Somewhere, for me, she’s still here,” she told Libération. “Her presence is so strong in the film, in her photos … I think that her message is going to travel far.”
