Cleaning Schaerbeek
Farah Kassem
When the terror alert level in Belgium was raised, the Interior Minister made a pithy statement that he was going to clean up the Molenbeek district.
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Cleaning Schaerbeek
Documentary Film
Belgium,
Lebanon
2017
19 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Farah Kassem
Director
Farah Kassem
Music
Yohan Dumas
Cinematographer
Farah Kassem
Editor
Farah Kassem
Script
Farah Kassem
Sound
Farah Kassem
When the terror alert level in Belgium was raised, the Interior Minister made a pithy statement that he was going to clean up the Molenbeek district – by now a synonym for Islamist breeding ground. Meanwhile a resident of the Schaerbeek district, also predominantly populated by migrants, discovered that mysterious things were going on in front of her window. She informed the authorities and filmed what’s happening … An equally intelligent and amusing essayist look at paranoia and the obsession with security.
Frederik Lang
Frederik Lang
Damascus, My First Kiss
Lina Al Abed
Three Syrian women talk about their relationship to their body and sexuality, the pressure of tradition and guilt. Surprisingly frank – a touch of unrest and freedom.
Damascus, My First Kiss
Documentary Film
Lebanon,
Qatar,
Syria
2012
42 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Lina Al Abed, SakaDo Productions
Director
Lina Al Abed
Music
Wael al Kak
Cinematographer
Joud Gorani
Editor
Andrijana Stojkovic, Rami Nihawi
Script
Lina al Abed
Sound
Ghanem Al Mir
In her third documentary the Palestinian-Jordanian filmmaker Lina Alabed once more addresses the role of women in the Arab world. The location is Damascus, Syria. The revolt against Assad’s regime hasn’t started yet. But there is tension in the air and the question of the limitations set for women by a male-dominated society must necessarily lead to the question of freedom. Three women talk about their relationship to their bodies and sexuality, about the pressures of tradition and feelings of guilt. Asma, a Muslim woman who was married at 16 when she had no idea what marriage means; Lina, the daughter of a wealthy Christian family, who regrets that she doesn’t know her body yet at the age of 45; at last the director herself and her very personal off-screen comments which forge the voices of this film into a single narrative. It’s surprising how frankly Asma and Lina describe their lives, surprising to the protagonists themselves. In a wonderful scene – Asma has just described how stroking her daughter in her arms was criticised as designed to incite sexual arousal – she looks into the distance, lost in thought. Then she turns her head towards the camera and says: Where are you taking me? So how can conditions be changed? Lina and Asma have freed their daughters from social pressure by allowing them to make their own life decisions, cutting a swath through the petrified social conditions at whose end the director envisions the freedom of humanity, independent of sex.
– Matthias Heeder
– Matthias Heeder
From My Syrian Room
Hazem Alhamwi
An artist’s memories of a country that strove for freedom. Apocalyptic motifs, associative reflections and conversations – a snapshot of the Syrian opposition.
From My Syrian Room
Credits
Producer
Nathalie Combe, Heino Deckert, Georges Schoucair, Myriam Sassine, Hazem Alhamwi
Director
Hazem Alhamwi
Music
Sivan
Cinematographer
Hazem Alhamwi, Ghassan Katlabi
Editor
Florence Jacquet
Script
Hazem Alhamwi
Sound
Nuzha Al Nazer, Frédéric Maury
A feeling of oppression creeps in. Hazem Alhamwi’s nib scratches over a black and white sketch worthy of Hieronymus Bosch. Apocalyptic motives and mordant satire are his speciality and were his salvation. In a country like Syria, where everything, even breathing – as someone bitterly comments – was controlled, havens were needed. Art that resigns itself to being non-public, can be one. This film was made when the protests following the Arab Spring raised hopes that something might change: saying out loud at last what was suppressed and would have lead to long prison sentences for decades. The director talks to friends and relatives to find causes and origins, beginning with childhood experiences of propaganda and personality cults, adaptation and fear. Today, when events happen so fast, we are in the age of fast media. Alhamwi’s nuanced tones, associative motives and trips into the visual worlds of childhood have a hard time keeping up in a present in which Syria is crushed between religious and ethnic interests as well as those of foreign countries. The voices from Alhamwi’s room are echoes of a time when people demanded democratisation and freedom. The film records those short moments when the opposition tried to form and articulate itself. The time allotted to the idealists was very short.
Cornelia Klauß
Cornelia Klauß
Home
Rafat Alzakout
Manbij in northern Syria, worn down by the war and its changing frontlines. Three friends build a cultural centre in the midst of chaos. An attempt to stay human through art.
Home
Documentary Film
Lebanon,
Syria
2015
70 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Christin Luettich
Director
Rafat Alzakout
Cinematographer
Farah Kassem, Juma Hamdo, Joude Gorani, Rafat Alzakout
Editor
Zeina Aboul-Hosn
Script
Rafat Alzakout
Sound
Raed Younan
What’s a good time for art? Perhaps a time when it seems utterly impossible and yet must be created, as a proof of vitality. Manbij in Northern Syria is one of the cities abandoned by the regime’s forces in 2012. The fighting, however, didn’t stop: Assad’s regime, the Free Syrian Army and increasingly the “Islamic State” are all waging an embittered war against each other. And yet in the midst of constant bombing campaigns and extreme hardship some form of public life is maintained by local councils and civic centres.
Director Rafat Alzakout, who emigrated to Beirut, drove to Manbij to see his friends and spend time with them for this film. He accompanies Ahmed, the ballet dancer, Mohamed, the former officer of the national army, and Taj, the former drawing teacher, in their attempts to lead a “normal life” under the circumstances and not to lose sight of their individual, artistic and social visions. Again and again they create provisional oases where people meet freely. The immediacy of direct observation and familiar interviews with friends as well as diary-like reflections create a beautiful balance between heroic song and everyday story, hope and disillusionment.
Ralph Eue
Director Rafat Alzakout, who emigrated to Beirut, drove to Manbij to see his friends and spend time with them for this film. He accompanies Ahmed, the ballet dancer, Mohamed, the former officer of the national army, and Taj, the former drawing teacher, in their attempts to lead a “normal life” under the circumstances and not to lose sight of their individual, artistic and social visions. Again and again they create provisional oases where people meet freely. The immediacy of direct observation and familiar interviews with friends as well as diary-like reflections create a beautiful balance between heroic song and everyday story, hope and disillusionment.
Ralph Eue
SAMT (Silence)
Chadi Aoun
In a dictatorship of religious fanatics modern dance is the secret code of the silent resistance. At out-of-the-way places in town young people celebrate the hidden joy of life with their bodies, cope with the terror they experienced.
SAMT (Silence)
Animated Film
Lebanon
2016
15 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Chadi Aoun
Director
Chadi Aoun
Music
Fadi Tabbal
Cinematographer
Chadi Aoun
Editor
Chadi Aoun
Animation
Chadi Aoun
Script
Chadi Aoun
Sound
Fadi Tabbal
In a dictatorship of religious fanatics modern dance is the secret code of the silent resistance. At out-of-the-way places in town young people celebrate the hidden joy of life with their bodies, cope with the terror they experienced. Chadi Aoun’s drawn animation is an equally expressive and haunting depiction of an oppressive, restricted life and a colourful outbreak. Their indomitable will to live is choreographed as an expansive dance movement.
André Eckardt
Nominated for mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
André Eckardt
Nominated for mephisto 97.6 Audience Award
Sugar Cage
Zeinah AlQahwaji
Since the war began, the director has frequently filmed her parents in their home near Damascus to find out what “home” means under these difficult circumstances.
Sugar Cage
Documentary Film
Egypt,
Lebanon,
Syria
2019
60 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Zeinah AlQahwaji, Ali Hammoud (Reader Films)
Director
Zeinah AlQahwaji
Music
Ali Assad, Hassan Ali
Cinematographer
Zeinah AlQahwaji
Editor
Raya Yamisha
A swarm of storks circles above the barren plain. The migratory birds can move freely – unlike the director’s parents who are stuck in their apartment near Damascus. Every day they try to overcome the fear of a bomb impact, but also of isolation. The increasing infirmities of age don’t make the situation easier. Since the outbreak of the war in Syria, Zeinah AlQahwaji has visited her parents again and again and filmed them in their flat to find out what “home” means under such difficult circumstances. She consistently stays with them in their cramped apartment. Only the eyes and the camera constantly wander off into the distance, to the city. The apartment is a familiar refuge for her parents, though they are confined in it like in a cage.
In her feature-length film debut, the director weaves the material shot over several years into an intimate portrait. It is an unspectacular look at life in a war zone, far removed from journalistic reporting. The passing of time can be seen only in the changing seasons. The recurring interruptions of the water and power supply also provide a structure. But even the news seems monotonous: When international political attempts to help Syria are announced once again, the parents don’t even shrug their shoulders.
Annina Wettstein
In her feature-length film debut, the director weaves the material shot over several years into an intimate portrait. It is an unspectacular look at life in a war zone, far removed from journalistic reporting. The passing of time can be seen only in the changing seasons. The recurring interruptions of the water and power supply also provide a structure. But even the news seems monotonous: When international political attempts to help Syria are announced once again, the parents don’t even shrug their shoulders.
Annina Wettstein
Credits
Producer
Estayqazat Project
Director
Jalal Maghout
Music
A.w. Team
Cinematographer
Jalal Maghout
Editor
Jalal Maghout
Animation
Jalal Maghout
Script
Jalal Maghout
Sound
A.w. Team
The portrait of Suleima, one of thousands of anonymous women that fight against dependency and injustice in Syria.
They Do Not Exist
Mustafa Abu Ali
A title which quotes former Israeli Minister President Golda Meir. The film is a portrait in nine formally very diverse chapters of the Palestinian refugee camp of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon: its inhabitants’ solidarity with the fight for liberation ...
Credits
Producer
PLO
Director
Mustafa Abu Ali
A title which quotes former Israeli Minister President Golda Meir. The film is a portrait in nine formally very diverse chapters of the Palestinian refugee camp of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon: its inhabitants’ solidarity with the fight for liberation, the anti-imperialist context and the destruction of Nabatieh by Israeli airstrikes in May 1974. The director, Mustafa Abu Ali, was one of the founding fathers of the PLO film organisation.
Irit Neidhardt
Irit Neidhardt
Tiny Souls
Dina Naser
Three Syrian kids in a refugee camp in Jordan. Their experience of flight and exile, followed with empathy but also pointing beyond to ongoing history.
Tiny Souls
Documentary Film
France,
Jordan,
Lebanon,
Qatar
2019
85 minutes
Subtitles:
English
German
Credits
Producer
Dina Naser
Director
Dina Naser
Music
Ronald Heu
Cinematographer
Dina Naser, Hasan Abu Hammad
Editor
Najwa Khachimi, Qutaiba Barhamji
Script
Dina Naser
Sound
Antonin Dalmasso
They and all the others will continue to inspire life, Dina Naser writes at the end of her film about three children of war in Syria. They grow up in a refugee camp in Jordan: Marwa is the eldest, then there’s her sister Ayah and finally Mahmoud, the youngest. They have seven other siblings, but the family was torn apart when one brother in Syria no longer wanted to serve in the army and thus the dictator Assad. Marwa is the heroine of the film. She will soon be grown-up or at least considered almost of marriageable age by her parents. Her mother and father now make sure she doesn’t go out any more. But she already has a boyfriend.
Dina Naser follows the three children’s fate and everyday life over an extended period of time, starting in 2014. The filmmaker even hands the camera temporarily over to her protagonists – for the time when she can’t be with them. This can and should be compared to the situation of Palestinian refugees in 1948, among them Dina Naser’s father, whose experiences are referenced by the director. This opens up a larger context for this story which is profoundly and universally human but at the same time linked closely to the complicated Syria and Middle East conflict by its wealth of detail.
Bert Rebhandl
Dina Naser follows the three children’s fate and everyday life over an extended period of time, starting in 2014. The filmmaker even hands the camera temporarily over to her protagonists – for the time when she can’t be with them. This can and should be compared to the situation of Palestinian refugees in 1948, among them Dina Naser’s father, whose experiences are referenced by the director. This opens up a larger context for this story which is profoundly and universally human but at the same time linked closely to the complicated Syria and Middle East conflict by its wealth of detail.
Bert Rebhandl
Waves '98
Ely Dagher
A teenager in the city of Beirut in the late 1990s: a chimeric metropolis in a state of suspension, where the only way to escape loneliness leads inside the golden beast.
Waves '98
Animated Film
Lebanon
2015
15 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Ely Dagher
Director
Ely Dagher
Music
Matthew Wilcock
Cinematographer
Ely Dagher
Editor
Ely Dagher
Animation
Ely Dagher,Laure Escafadals, Chadi Aoun
Script
Ely Dagher
Sound
Zelig Sound
A teenager in the city of Beirut in the late 1990s: a chimeric metropolis in a state of suspension, where the only way to escape loneliness leads inside the golden beast. The powerful mix of live footage and animation creates a sense of geography and date for this reflection about the director’s relationship to his birthplace. A cartography of isolation, boredom, disillusion, and chaos.
Victor Orozco
Victor Orozco
