Photo/Illutration "Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk" director Sepideh Farsi at a news conference during the 78th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 23. Farsi spoke on the crisis in Gaza and the documentary's subject, Fatima Hassouna, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike the day after the announcement that the documentary had been chosen for the festival's ACID program. (REUTERS/Stephane Mahe)

Waking up in Gaza where there is no electricity or running water, Fatima Hassouna reminds herself every morning: “This is your life. Live it.”

Homes have been destroyed in Israeli attacks. Hassouna and her family of 10 are living huddled in a single room, but she says with a smile, “Even so, I’m still living.”

The above is from “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” a 2025 film that is currently showing in theaters, which I just saw the other day.

It documents the daily life of Hassouna, a 24-year-old photojournalist born and raised in Gaza, as shared by her through WhatsApp video chats over a period of one year from spring 2024.

Her family has been killed and her friend has died.

“Too may terrible things have happened, and I see myself hollowed out. I am miserable,” she confesses, even as explosions are heard in the background and white smoke is seen rising from a destroyed building.

And all the while, drones keep flying overhead, assailing the ears with their incessant buzzing.

There is no food. The internet is down. Nothing is going right, and she says, “Even I have to marvel at myself for still hanging on.”

And yet, she never loses her infectious smile.

“I have a dream,” she says, which is to some day study photography outside Gaza.

However, she confesses that her immediate dream is to “have just one piece of chocolate.”

Her last video chat was in April this year. Hassouna’s life was mercilessly stolen, just days after her 25th birthday.

How am I to understand this cruel absurdity?

A cease-fire was agreed upon this past October, but air attacks on Gaza have not ended.

How can people still smile when there is nothing but despair?

I posed that question to Sepideh Farsi, the film’s director, when she visited Japan last month.

She answered to the effect, “(Hassouna) did so in order to live. And that, I believe, was her way of preserving her pride, dignity and will to resist.”

—The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 11

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.