Discoveries from Syria World Cinema

Nour’s journey of coming to terms with her longing for her father and for Syria, as she confronts loss and the profound emotional impact of absence.

A journey in the world of the little employee Sobhi Halogi, a conservative, conservative woman, occupies the axis of his thinking. He seems to be an object, but we do not reveal his intimacy unless life has given us a special experience with him. Sobhi Halouji is confronted by a girl he encounters by coincidence, but fails to bear the spiritual expenses imposed on him by this relationship. The film reveals and exposes the model of this segment with all its contradictions, motives and aspirations to overcome the bitterness of living and deprivation at all costs, bearing one goal is to climb.

Huseyin and his family living in Kobane make a living from selling yogurt. Huseyin and his daughter Zelal set off to the city to sell yogurt. One day, they miss the bazaar time and start walking around the streets, trying to sell the yogurt. While trying to sell yogurt, they meet a boy named Hemudê, which leads to many misfortunes. Their one-day journey witnesses the reshaping of social dynamics in the aftermath of the Kobanê war.

Salem dreams of being an actor but is still working in a gas station, only his love for Nada can make things easier for him.

As Soheir marries Hamdy, she gets in an accident and her sisters Hanan and Salma leave the house, the first to find work and the second to escape Hamdy's advances. After Soheir dies, Salma takes a job as a maid as Hanan gets recruited to work as a prostitute in upscale communities.

The construction of a dam on the Euphrates River is an example of a country’s economic development. Through grandly composed images, rhythmic editing, and aestheticized details, the director demonstrates his admiration for the interwar avant-garde. The film is a celebration of the new, while at the same time showing a traditional way of life and calling attention to working conditions; it is a refrain-like evocation of an arid country that explores the difficult lot of Syria’s rural inhabitants.

The biopic of 19th century Syrian scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi who battled against the injustice in Syria during the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. His efforts actually managed to overthrow the Ottoman viceroy. However, he was banished to Cairo, only to continue his fight there.

During the Syrian war, an elderly man falls into a long coma, caught between life and death. Meanwhile, his young son undergoes an exhausting struggle between his thoughts and emotions, torn between his obligations toward his father and his desire to step into the life he yearns for.

The film talks about the resistance in Palestine against the Zionist occupation, by addressing a family from the West Bank, at the end of the eighties of the last century, that is, during the period of the Intifada.

A father and head of a poor family who works as a taxi driver for his family, his eldest daughter is a girl with a strong and liberal personality who studied karate. One day, the father dies and the family finds itself without a breadwinner, and the eldest daughter is forced to work as a taxi driver in order to support the family, which puts her in many troubles and unconventional situations that push her down an unconventional path

Berfin is a young female guerrilla who has had to grow fast within Kurdistan war. As she tries to adapt to her new life at mountains peaks, she dives deep in her inner world seeking answers for her past. House raids, non-return leavings, the dead in the village square, the endless whispering of the elders and a mother who left her behind … Between her losses and the war in her country, Berfin takes the roads to pursue both her memories and her mother. A story of quest, war and longing; love, loss and struggle of a female guerrilla fighter of Kurdistan.

In a war-ravaged Syrian neighborhood, a musician struggles to rebuild his piano after it is destroyed by terrorists.

A compelling and profound story that explores the resilience of the human spirit in times of crises and wars.

Through the lens of a Syria scarred by twelve years of war, the 2022 World Cup sparks flickers of joy, tension, and memory. Football becomes both refuge and battleground – a game that binds and divides, stirring questions of identity, loyalty, and loss. As cheers rise for distant nations, the dream of local pride hangs in the air like smoke. In living rooms and cafés, the screen offers escape – and reveals a fractured nation searching for something to hold onto.

A psychiatrist hypnotizes his female patients and robs them while they are under. The company where he committed one of his crimes enlists the help of a private detective to find out who is the perpetrator of the robberies.

Dib moves with his younger brother and their mother from his home town of Quneitra to Damascus after the death of his father. The children’s grandfather, who was known for his tyranny, reluctantly agrees to shelter the grieving family, and tries to force his daughter to marry again. The magic of the city of Damascus takes over the conscience. Dib, whose main concern has become discovering all the secrets of this city, is driven by his heart full of dreams, but he sees nothing in his life except humiliation and cruelty. The fragrance of childhood dies in Dib's heart, as he grows up in light of the political fluctuations that prevailed in the fifties (the end of the military dictatorship in Syria at that time, the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Nasser’s rise to power in Cairo, and Egyptian-Syrian unity in 1958), so that his rosy childhood dreams were shattered on the rocks of cruelty and violence. The city's dreams turn into a nightmare..

The film talks about the pain hidden in the corners of the soul and the psychological breakdowns that accumulate day after day, fold upon fold, forming a heavy weight on the heart. They are small details related to the partner sometimes and to work and life circumstances other times, so a person becomes in need of confiding in order to purify his heart and soul and hear some of his groans for the one who is supposed to be his warm embrace, like a child who takes refuge in the arms of his parents after they had abused or become angry with him. Confession is a highly sincere emotional state and its whisper is like a stifled, choked scream. It is a film that talks about the simple cracks that, when they increase, threaten the relationship with the partner and warn of its collapse. It is a social film that moves between the depths of hearts, shedding light on those pains hidden within each of us.

In a sad land, violence takes over one of its girls, turning her life into a hell whose flames are fanned by those closest to her. Hayat, a simple girl lives governed by ignorance, bigotry, and deprivation. She spends her days according to what is destined for her, growing up without love, without dreams, without hope. One day, fate brings her a disaster from which there is no escape except a death sentence. At the moment death appears imminent, fate intervenes once again to open a new horizon for life, but with an irreplaceable loss. Hayat, a story of a journey through worlds of secrets, fear, and escape in search of salvation.

In Beirut, a naive college student falls for an Egyptian girl who is studying in Lebanon. As he asks his friends for advice, his friends prank him and take photos of him with the girl, which they then send to her father. The girl's father grows angry and goes to Beirut to bring his daughter back.

The tragic fate of both one family and the Armenian people is expressed through the strikingly minimalist prism of one picture, whilst the resilience of identity and belonging is conveyed as the family sings 'Happy Birthday' in a sequence of languages - Armenian, Arabic, French, Dutch and English. By representing displacement in one constantly restoring image, Mekhitar Garabedian responds to the crossgenerational impact of diaspora and genocide with a performative act: the consoling process of continuously becoming. (argos centre for audiovisual arts)

On a cold Syrian night, as the families of Abu Khalil and Abu Karam engage in heated discussions about the meaning of identity, homeland, and belonging, the mother (Inanna) lives in her own world, experiencing denial and detachment as the death of one of her sons draws near, desperately trying to postpone it. This independent film, produced by the artist Hussam Hammo, is inspired by the ancient Sumerian myth (the myth of the descent of Inanna – the Great Syrian Mother). It is an attempt to revive heritage and reconstruct this myth through elements connected to lived Syrian reality, an attempt to hear the voices of our mothers and see reality through their eyes.

Darên bitenê is a fascinating documentary exploring the “dengbej” musical heritage of the singers, poets and storytellers from Northern Syria’s region. Featuring a stunning scenery of poetic landscapes, the film is interlaced with stories of Kurdish and Assyrian songs that narrate the long history of love and suffering of this semi-autonomous region.

Based on novel by Ghada al-Samman.

Abu Salem is a small family living a very miserable life, and their dream is simple in life. The wife is overwhelmed as she suffers from some diseases, the husband gets into several unsuccessful adventures, and the children open their eyes to this cruel world. We follow their lives and dreams to a better tomorrow.

Samir is deeply in love with Hanan but he is unable to reveal his impotence to her in a merciless society that sees him as less than a man. When he kills himself after their honeymoon, Hanan falls for his friend Kamal, but this relationship has its own share of struggles.

A look at the Baath party's project to construct a system of dams.

A film written by Fajr Yacoub, adapted from a story of the same title by Colette Khoury. An experimental film about the loss of a person in the midst of an unfulfilled absence, a person who can be present or absent at any moment. The coincidence that brings the girl and her mother's lookalike together on the street is nothing more than a pretext for the narrative and the simulation of these emotions.

A feudal lord and his business manager lead a careless life, squandering huge sums on their debauched lifestyle during their trips to France. As the scope of exploitation expands in front of the business manager, he oppresses the peasants and practices usury, so Zanouba decides to enter a special game with the usurer so that she can bring him down.

When a film crew descends on a rural Syrian village, the act of filmmaking itself begins to unsettle everyday life. Centered on Najla, the film observes how performance, desire, and social pressure blur the line between reality and fiction. Najla’s Passions was the first Syrian feature produced digitally.

The story revolves around a woman who faces a lot of troubles and ambitions, and she lives in chaos, emotional and great life due to the circumstances of her sick son and her daughter who becomes the focus of attention of one of the influential people, so that the struggle begins in her life between the desire to preserve the life of her son, and the happiness of her daughter threatened, through her simple human relations with surrounding characters With her in her village.

We are all drops in the river of life that we flow through, and in the film we see the pain of some of these drops and their life experiences, and their struggle between the harsh circumstances that drag them down and frustrate them and the desire to be freed from the suffering and rise again or settle down due to the circumstances imposed by the necessities of life.

The film tells the story of Qusay, a university professor in the College of Media, whose life changes after he learns that his close friend from his college days, whom he hasn't heard from for years, has fallen into a major problem. Qusay tries to help him and find out the truth about what really happened.

A close look at the modern life details of people representing different social strata, from a street vendor to a political intellectual, touching upon the story of two lovers whose life paths have faltered, as well as a crane operator who doesn't want to leave his homeland despite the circumstances.

A short film about post-crisis Syria through the obsessions of a pregnant woman haunted by nightmares about deformed children in the destruction.

A retired security man returns to civilian life to realize that he has lost his value, so he begins a journey to regain that value and his position in life.

In Beirut, Syrian construction workers are building a skyscraper while at the same time their own houses at home are being shelled. The Lebanese war is over but the Syrian one still rages on. The workers are locked in the building site. They are not allowed to leave it after 19.00. The Lebanese government has imposed night-time curfews on the refugees. The only contact with the outside world for these Syrian workers is the hole through which they climb out in the morning to begin a new day of work. Cut off from their homeland, they gather at night around a small TV set to get the news from Syria. Tormented by anguish and anxiety, while suffering the deprivation of the most basic human and workers right, they keep hoping for a different life.

When a popular doctor takes his own life, leaving behind a video will and a series of films of his life, everyone who knew him is forced to reassess their own life, creating a mirror of contemporary Syrian society.

Short documentary about political prisoners struggling to come to terms with haunting memories, produced for the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The film presents a reflection on the effects of prison in general and on the theatre director Ghassan Jbaii in particular. The artist used his work to come to terms with his haunting memories and regain the world outside the prison walls.

The film is based on a line from the Gospel of Thomas: "Jesus says: Find one who was not born of woman, fall on your face (and) worship him. That one is your Father".

Eight-year-old Evlin characterizes the resilience of Kobane's resistance against ISIS forces through her experience in a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border.

The professor Majid confesses to his friend Adil in the new year's eve about his love to the dead wife of that friend, the love that last more than 30 years without even telling her. Then other secret starts to to be revealed as the officer friend confesses as well why he had an affair with other women.

When a new TV show about finding missing people airs, a taxi driver sends a message through the show to find his sister who has been missing for two years.

Named after a facility built in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1930, Lydda Airport centres on the story of Hannibal, one of eight planes belonging to Imperial Airways that went missing in 1940 over the Gulf of Oman. The absence is doubled, the ellipsis compounded. Jacir tells the parallel tale of Edmond Tamari, the transport company employee from Jaffa who, it is said, was told to take a bouquet of flowers to Lydda Airport and wait for Amelia Earhart to arrive so that he may welcome her to Palestine. The arrival never happened. Closure forever deferred.

Kyoko is 70 years old. She is a japanese calligrapher and stylist who left her native japan to live in paris. sanae is 28 and has been practicing contemporary dance since childhood. her maternal grandmother was japanese but to integrate, she chose not to pass on her cultural heritage. at the crossing of ages, sanae is in search of her japanese roots while kyoko finds a new youth. the film is a haiku, with no beginning and no end, a moment suspended in time, eternal.

Hands, and the things hands do handsomely edited to some hand-conducted orchestral music. A short film by Syrian film director Abdellatif Abdul Hamid, produced after his return to Syira from the Soviet Union.

When the revolution in Syria turned into war, Nidal Al Dibs and his family fled to Cairo. There, he started filming his Egyptian friends as they attempt to reopen a long-closed cinema in their impoverished neighborhood. As this endeavor proves to be more and more difficult, Nidal turns to managing renovations of his house back in his troubled homeland.

The Songs of Red Braids: Woman, life, freedom. The woman brought wheat from the field and was the master of finding opportunities in life.

Seven scenes from a shattered life, a buried dream, and a homeland that now holds only memories. Within them, a young boy and girl face a fateful choice: stay in the ruins of the familiar, or risk the unknown for a new dream.

Kinda marries a wealthy man, lives a happy and quiet life, but suffers from childlessness from her husband, only to gradually reveal the facts about the source of her husband's wealth, and find herself in front of a terrible shock

The story of Jiyan Tolhildan who fights for women’s freedom and against ISIS. This is a shortened TV version of the documentary film “Jiyan’s Story”.

This first year, from suffering to freedom, bears witness to the rebirth of a liberated country. Surreal Syria, through the eyes of survivors of Sednaya, Adra, Mezze, and other Syrian prisons, tells the story of the dark cells, the lost years, and the endless wait of the faces hanging on the walls. It brings to life the voices that oppression could not silence, reviving in the streets on the first anniversary of freedom.