The shadow of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looms over the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

Cameras may not be allowed into Gaza , but the Middle East conflict is making its way to Cannes. The 78th edition of the festival is hosting several films exploring the subject, including a documentary whose protagonist, a Gazan photographer, was killed by an Israeli missile in mid-April. The screening of this feature film, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, will be one of the highlights of an event that is expected to continue echoing the war, from press conferences to the red carpet. Last year, Australian-American actress Cate Blanchett wore a dress reminiscent of the colors of the Palestinian flag.

Also read : "She knew she was at risk of dying": The story of Fatma Hassouna, heroine of a documentary on Gaza presented at Cannes

From the opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 13, the speeches will be scrutinized. On the film side, two feature films are expected to reach the public, including Once Upon a Time in Gaza, a production by the brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser, Gazans exiled for years whose tragicomic fables echo their homeland. Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, an intellectual who is highly critical of his country's political orientations, was selected at the last minute for the Filmmakers' Fortnight for Yes . The film takes place in Israel in the aftermath of October 7 and follows a musician who must set a new national anthem to music.

The most emotionally charged screening promises to be the world premiere, on May 15, of Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk . Fatima Hassouna, a 25-year-old Gazan who photographed her daily life during the war, is the protagonist of this documentary by Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi. On April 15, the young woman learned that the film had been selected. The next day, a missile reduced her home to dust, killing her family with her. Only her mother survived.

This screening of Acid, the least known of the parallel sections, will be "a way of honoring the memory of the photographer, a victim like so many others of the war," the Cannes Film Festival emphasizes, expressing its "horror." Several film organizations have requested a tribute on this occasion. Until the end, Sepideh Farsi, 60, a political refugee in France, believed that the young woman "was going to come, that the war was going to end," she explained to AFP. "We were wrong to believe it, because reality overtook us."

Israel prohibits the international press from entering Gaza. The filmmaker, who previously secretly filmed a documentary in Iran on her cell phone, therefore established a remote connection via video call with Fatima Hassouna, who regularly posted her photos on social media. Some of the photos will be featured in an exhibition at Cannes. "Her smile shines through the film. Her gaze, her green eyes that change color depending on the light... All these moments, fortunately, are filmed and will be there forever," adds the director. Fatima Hassouna had "said several times that she was documenting this war (...) life in Gaza, too, to pass it on to others and to the children she wanted to have," says Sepideh Farsi. "I thought it was magnificent. Unfortunately, she will never have any."

The October 7, 2023, attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 58 are still being held in Gaza, 34 of whom have been declared dead by the Israeli military. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014. The Israeli reprisal campaign has left more than 52,000 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.