Discoveries from Syria World Cinema

A stranger infiltrates a group of people who live in an isolated place and tries to drive a wedge between them to seize control of the land. Two

2013. Civil war rages and Almourad Aldeeb is imprisoned by the Syrian regime for several months before managing to flee to Germany. After the fall of the dictatorship, he returns to the scene of his torment. Like a silent cry, his emotionless voiceover recounts the horrors that he and his friends endured.

The story of the Syrian archaeologist Khaled Al-Asaad, who saved Palmyra's treasures from ISIS, only to pay for his brave stance with his life.

The final scene brings us back to the first year of the start of the Syrian revolution, through the story of activist Orwa Al Mokdad, who documented through his lens the first year of the revolution. After Orwa leaves Syria for Lebanon, he presents all the materials he recorded to his brother Eyas, the filmmaker residing in Belgium, to complete the film project he was working on, which is to show the peaceful face of the Syrian revolution. Eyas begins searching in these materials for that face to discover another face of his brother and his young companions who risked their lives to bring the revolution into action. Defeat and betrayal are part of the story of the movement against which the world allied itself, as the regime managed to distort it and turn that beautiful face into a violent one.

This is the story of a student who was expelled from his school. From then, his grandfather will teach him using a panoply of rather unusual methods.

The film is based on the script of the film "The Diamond Dove" by the writer "Diana Al-Fares".

A dramatic short film written in 2014. It imagines the moment of the fall of the Syrian regime and reviews the most prominent events of the Syrian revolution . After victory, it shows the extend to which expectations match reality, and it is currently being filmed.

Following a plane crash, a man, his wife, and his friend end up on a desert island, and once again the eternal struggle that involves one woman and two men rages over who gets the woman and who should stay.

A filmed version of the theater play about the famous Kurdish poet Evdalê Zeynikê.

Bissan, a girl from Jerusalem, who has no-one left in her life except her old grandma, lives in an old house that used to belong to her ancestors, next to the graveyard where all her family members are buried. Bissan starts to walk inside the cemetery, passing by some surrounding hills and heading towards an undetermined end.

Due to the ISIS war, Kani (a pregnant singer) and her husband decide to leave Kurdistan. After meeting with a Turkish smuggler, they have no choice but to make the arduous journey inside an emptied, claustrophobic oil tanker across the Turkish border, stuck with a group of people who are also running for their lives.

In a city ravaged by war, while society tries to cope with the consequences of war, a small girl found a peculiar way to survive. Home is the first short shot in the city of Raqqa, former capital of the Islamic State in Syria, after it has been liberated. The film reflects on the trauma of war through the powerful gaze of her young director, Syrian filmmaker Sevinaz Evdike, who has experienced it in first person.

The filmmaker’s directorial debut after joining the National Film Organization, this short documentary follows young children in preschool as they become exposed for the first time to notions of learning, reciting, and proper pronunciation and molded into conformity.

Salma searches for her husband’s death certificate so that she can continue her life. This search journey leads her to collide with some problems, financial and otherwise, and she suddenly finds herself in a situation imposed on her by her self-esteem, so she runs for the “People’s Assembly.”

In the Syrian War, a woman lost her husband trying to hide the truth from her tongue-tied(Muted) child by acting the father role, facing life alone trying to protect her family.

A short narrative film starring Abbas Al-Nouri, Yazan Rishani, Abdel Moneim Amayri, Marah Hassan, Hema Ismail and Muhammad Qanoua.

TRIP ALONG EXODUS is a feature-length documentary exploring the last 70 years of Palestinian politics seen through the prism of the life of Dr Elias Shoufani, a leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, an academic writer and leftist intellectual who worked with Fateh (but was one of the leaders of the opposition to Arafat) for 20 years. He is also the father of the filmmaker and writer, Hind.

A cinematic journey through exile, justice, and the fragile act of return. Following a filmmaker who goes back to Syria after twelve years in exile, in the wake of the Assad regime’s fall, the film weaves together the stories of survivors of torture, imprisonment, and displacement as they fight to hold regime officials accountable—even those hiding in Europe. Between courtrooms abroad and ruins at home, Ashes becomes a living archive: voices refusing disappearance, memories demanding recognition, and testimony transformed into resistance. More than a story of war, it asks an urgent question for Syrians and for the world: can justice and dignity be rebuilt from the ruins, or will silence prevail once more?

The Story of Nûjiyan Erhan.

For 14 years, Syrian filmmakers Hasan Kattan and Fadi Al-Halabi have journeyed together through war and storytelling. Their bond was forged on the frontlines of revolution where their cameras recorded terror and hope, laughter and heartbreak – moments that defined a generation. Years later, their story takes an unexpected turn. Confined inside a UK asylum hotel, Hasan and Fadi document a new chapter shaped not by bombs, but by waiting, bureaucracy, and exile.

Gule is preparing for her wedding the next day. Her family receives news of an imminent threat of war attack on the city. They must take a decision: Should they celebrate the wedding or not?

During the ongoing Syrian war, Hala leaves her house after her husband sells her wedding gown in order to secure the cost of his marriage to another woman. Upon her arrival to the house of her friend Talla, the police come and drag Talla’s husband to military service, so the two women sit alone waiting for the return of what they have lost.

In 1997, A student in a middle school challenges the teacher of military education, as a result of which he is subjected to a severe punishment. The student plans to take revenge on the teacher of military education, while they are on a school trip in a remote rural area. Will the student's plan succeed or will his plan turn against him?

Alina Sánchez, Lêgerîn, internationalist doctor, anthropologist, active participant in the Kurdistan Women's Liberation Movement, researcher specialized in the relationship between medicine and ancestral knowledge, coordinator of health care systems in the Middle East wars, friend , companion. With respect as the guiding thread of the documentary, María Laura Vásquez reconstructs each of these multiple lives of the doctor from Córdoba who died at the beginning of 2018 in Syria; but she also appropriates her story to vindicate the women who, as the filmmaker points out, “have been called to action in solidarity with their people and with other peoples in the world.”

Short feature film produced with the support of the European Union. The film deals with the story of a woman who gives birth to her child in exceptional circumstances where the birth is done with the help of her husband, because there are no other health conditions due to the siege imposed on their neighborhood. All that has performed a clear contrast between death by a sniper’s bullet and the birth of a new child with new hope of life.

Dreams are the only way for a Kurdish mother from Kobane to meet her martyr son during many years

In a desolate, conservative region of Syria a woman falls in love and runs away with a school teacher while her husband is away working in the city.

It is the void in its Syrian sense. A short independent musical film produced in 2021, directed by Hussam Hammo, it follows the story of a Syrian girl going through a phase of denial after the trauma of losing her closest loved ones, expressing the Syrian character marked by loss in a time of tyranny.

Three voices: Jamil and Sarah both absent and left our planet. Darina is resisting. All three are linked to text. All three choose the artistic expression form in their bid for freedom. Through the film, we try to draw the circle/relation amongst: Life, place, exile / voice, text, art / madness, suicide/ death. We may realise that this circle may also be the path we all follow: To fall or not to fall?

The personal and professional lives of five girlfriends living together in a flat: Nour, the landlord, who is in a lovers' quarrel with her fiance Wael, Leila an opinionated model, Media an aspiring actor, Samiha a daydreamer who's trying not to fail law school; and Lubna, a new comer who's looking for a job.

An experimental theatre project is touring Syria. Through interactive plays, they investigate violence in its different forms and question traditional social rules.

Soliman is an idealistic young lawyer who is in love with Bassima. As he fights a bitter battle with his rivals, victory slips away from him as he hesitates to finish some unfinished business, causing him to lose both the battle and his sweetheart.

Immigration? Yes or no? In Search of a better life... Is there another way? Please wait...

An ISIS propaganda film detailing the group's rise in Syria during the early 2010s and the start of the international military intervention against them.

Ruba, an artist grappling with severe depression, lives with her retired military father. At noon, after she finishes cleaning the apartment, she confides in him about her intention to commit suicide in a few hours. The two engage in conversations about the past, family, and death, touching upon the loss of the mother. Amidst the ordinary activities of their day, such as preparing lunch and listening to music, the father struggles to dissuade his daughter from taking such a tragic step. Eventually, she seizes his gun and retreats to her room.

In a Syrian refugee camp, "Siba" a woman who is looking for her right to obtain privacy by finding a place that provides privacy for her and all spouses in their intimate relationship away from the eyes of those around them, especially children.

This short documentary delves into the world of Cinema Al Dunia in Damascus, exploring the current reality of the cinema and attempting to reveal its future.

The film tells the story of a young woman with a mental illness who lost her brother in a murder. After a while, she decided to take revenge on the unknown killer, using her cunning and intelligence, exploiting his greed and avarice, and setting a trap for him, to prove to the killer that life is not about money alone.

Father and daughter have been separated by 3,350 kilometres for seven years. He lives in Syria, she lives in exile in Paris. All they have left is to talk on the internet.

A little boy named Adam tries to convince his friend that his father is not a liar.

Expressing desire, pursuing dreams, loving oneself, questioning the oppressive confines of patriarchy. Farida Baqi takes us on a lyrical and emotional journey through the life of a young woman from birth to adulthood in an unnamed Arab city.

It tells the story of a writer's relationship with his wife under special and complex circumstances, in which their lives intersect with those of a second man living elsewhere, making the relationship a dialectical one of reality and imagination.

At the early fifties in Syria, a man meets Salama, Mustafa, Hussein, and Youssef, all of whom oppose the dictatorial authority, when he is thrown into a political prison due to a misunderstanding, after which he finds himself in a place other than what he imagined, living in a difficult intellectual struggle.

An employee of a bank, accidentally loses money, and tries to return it

A film about Damascus, an 11,000 years old city, the most ancient and precious of cities, set to the poetry of the world famous Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

A young aspiring actress in Syria discovers she has been inhabited by the soul of a woman who died on the day she was born.

‘After What’ by Rodî Osman tells the story of a young man who calls for help on a lonely road under the scorching summer heat. Despite his cries, no one stops to help him. When he finally collapses from exhaustion, cars pile up on top of him. The short film vividly depicts isolation, helplessness and the deadly indifference of his surroundings.

“What might the feelings of returning to one’s hometown be? On a journey in search of truth, a story of longing and belonging to a homeland that embraced many.”

Hêza had never in her wildest dream thought that one day she would be commanding hundreds of men and women fighters in a battle against the worlds most dangerous jihadist terror organisation (ISIS) and defeat them. This documentary is about a Yazidi woman who had been enslaved during the attack of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Shengal (Sinjar) which started on 3 August 2014. It tells what she’d lived through in the hands of ISIS, how she managed to escape, and how she carried on with her life after her escape.