SPECIAL SCREENING – Syria, the strength of dialogue

In his documentary screened as a Special Screening, Ossama Mohammed, director of Sacrifices presented in Un Certain Regard in 2002, shouts his disgust at the Syrian conflict. A current fight resulting from several years of unrest, already covered by the film-maker more than 35 years ago.

Ossama Mohammed, a refugee in France since May 2011, helplessly observes the lack of reaction from the international community towards his country, Syria. The film director already raised the question of indoctrination by the Ba’ath party in 1978, in Step by step, a tale in black and white of daily life in a peasant village in Syria. He is back today with Silvered water, Syria self-portrait (Ma’a al-Fidda), more than 35 years after his first documentary. Before barbarity took over the country, he was already delivering this alarmist speech: “Do we have to wait until the foetus of violence reaches maturity before crying for danger?“. His aim is to raise awareness in the international community which is dramatically indifferent to these tragic events, through a documentary which is touching, bloody and heart-rending. A series of Internet images, harsh and often unbearable, obtained from YouTubers in Syria, have been used as a source for the documentary.

One of these YouTubers is a young female film director, brave and committed. Silvered water (which is the interpretation of Wiam Simav Bedirxan’s name in Kurdish) was born out of the relationship between this young woman living in the horror of Homs, resisting in her own way with camera in hand, and an “old” refugee film-maker. She saw him as a master, while he “discovered free cinema and a new face of Syria”, the face of a country devastated by bombs dropped by Bachar Al-Assad’s army, which have already killed over 150,000 people.

Charlotte Pavard

SCREENING

Friday May 16th / Soixantième Theatre / 5pm

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