Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was killed along with ten members of her family in an Israeli airstrike on her home in the northern Gaza Strip, is the star of a documentary that will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival next month.
A graduate of the University School of Applied Sciences in Gaza, Fatima was not just a photographer, she was a visual witness to a reality that is getting more brutal by the day. Hours before she was killed, she posted a photo of a sunset from her balcony, writing: “This is the first sunset in a long time.”
“As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don’t want myself on the news, nor in the group, I want a death that the world hears about, a mark that lasts forever and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury,” she wrote in a post shortly before her murder.
A day before she was killed, the Association of Independent Cinematographers for Distribution (ACID) announced that exiled Iranian director Sedeiph Farsi’s documentary “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” had been selected for next month’s Cannes Film Festival.
Fatima is the central character in the film, and her selection could have been a turning point in her career and an opportunity to share her vision with the world.
In an interview with the French daily Le Monde, the Iranian director described Fatima in touching terms, saying that she “was the sun”.
“She followed the war in Gaza, occasionally cooperating with the media by sending photos and videos. Every day she sent me photos, text messages and audio recordings. Every morning I would wake up and wonder if she was still alive,” she described.
Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) estimates that at least 157 journalists and media workers have been killed, and other reports suggest the actual number may exceed 200, Klix.ba writes.
