Touring Program - Lens on Syria

Touring Program - Lens on Syria

The program premiered at the Film Society of the Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater on May 5th to the 18th in 2006, the series has traveled to The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago; The Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa; The Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver; The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; The Pacific Film Archives in Berkley (organized in collaboration with The San Francisco Arab Film Festival); and The Northwest Film Center in Portland, Oregon. It also screened at the Cinémathèque de Tanger (Morocco), Darat al-Funun in Amman (Jordan), at the What, How and for Whom collective in Zaghreb (Croatia).

Often described as Arab cinema's “best kept secret”, ArteEast's Syrian cinema series provides an unprecedented opportunity for audiences throughout North America to discover a politically timely and relevant program, ranging from nonfiction films and comedies to political dramas and historical epics, all representative of one of the richest--albeit lesser-known--of world cinemas.

One of the most compelling feats of Syrian filmmakers has been their ability to craft an unabashedly independent voice despite the fact that their films are produced by the state, a stellar achievement in Arab cinema. Films do not shy away from making poignant and social and political critique, far removed from dogma and didactism.
Syrian filmmakers have not only engaged with issues pertinent to Syria, they have also been profoundly engaged with the tragedy of Palestine. Premiering in the US in this program is Mohammad Malas' poignant documentary The Dream, filmed in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon just months before the notorious massacres took place. It is a unique document that has finally become available after digital remastering and subtitling.

Other films centered on the Arab-Israeli conflict include Tewfik Saleh's classic The Dupes, Mohammad Malas' The Night and Omar Amiralay's A Plate of Sardines-Or The First Time I Heard of Israel.

The program includes old cinematic gems that have been digitally remastered and subtitled in English specifically for this program, such as Omar Amiralay's 1974 documentary Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (which he co-authored with late Syrian playwright Sa'adallah Wannus), and his 1977 documentary, The Chickens that has received critical acclaim worldwide. Other digitally remastered films that are made available for the first time in North America is Oussama Mohammad's first short fiction film, Step by Step.

One of the highlights of Lens on Syria is a long-overdue tribute to master documentary filmmaker Omar Amiralay. Winner of numerous international awards for his films, Amiralay was the subject of a special homage at the 2006 edition of the Cinéma du Réel Festival in Paris and 2007 edition of the Festival d'Automne at the Musé Jeu de Paume. While Amiralay's subject matter ranges across the entire Arab and Muslim world, his camera always finds its way back home. The series features some of the Amiralay's most renowned and compelling work, including two movies on the Euphrates Dam, the first 1970 film a homage to the Baath party's project, the second 2003 film documenting the flood caused by construction flaws and posing the event as a metaphor for the regime. The program also includes two documentaries that have received little attention, The Misfortunes of Some..., shot in 1981, it remains one of the most compelling documentaries on the Lebanese civil war and The Sarcophagus of Love, a documentary on the "liberal" opening of the Egyptian economy under Sadat in Egypt and the transformation of the role of women under that paradigm. These two films have been subtitled in English for the first time

Stars in Broad Daylight

 (Nujum al-Nahar), by Oussama Mohammad (Syria, 1988, 115 min, Color, Beta SP PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

A double wedding in a small village turns to high drama when one bride runs away and the other refuses to go on with her marriage. The drama unveils the fragile balance holding together a family strained by an abusive father now replaced by the successful but corrupt eldest son, a pathologically enraged second son, and the troubles of the youngest son, rendered deaf by a violent blow his father dealt him as a child. Ultimately tragic, the film is rife with biting humor and sharp political critique as it exposes how the violence of arbitrary and absolute power in a patriarchal society seeps into the unit of a family. Stars in Broad Daylight, Ousama Mohammad's first long feature, remains banned from screening in Syria because of its subversive representation and critical voice. Selected at the «Quinzaine des Réalisateurs» at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988. More

Just Get Married!

 by Hussam Chadat (Syria/Germany, 2003, 20 minutes, Color, Beta SP PAL)

Hilarious and heartwarming, Just Get Married! tells the story of Mr. Sharif, a Syrian living in Germany, whose student visa has finally run out. Desperate to find a way to stay in the country he has come to love, his futile attempts find him revisiting past girlfriends, responding to personal ads, and pleading with strangers. Eventually he learns that home is where you make it. More

Verbal Letters

 (Rassa’el Shafahiyyah), by Abdellatif Abdul-Hamid (Syria, 1991, 105 min, Color, 35 mm)

Set in the bright orange groves of a small village in the Syrian countryside, Verbal Letters has earned Abdellatif Abdul-Hamid frequent comparisons to French author Marcel Pagnol (Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources). The film, about love friendship, loyalty and the magic of the first kiss, is loosely adapted from the story of Cyrano de Bergerac. A young man with an oversized nose is too embarrassed to approach the beautiful young woman he has fallen deeply in love with. He dispatches his most trusted friend to recite to her his love letters, but she falls for the friend. The film is an ode of tenderness and humor to childhood, coming of age, the enchantment of the first love, and the pains of learning multiplication tables. More

They Were Here

 (Innahum Kanu Hun) by Ammar el-Beik (Syria, 2000, 8 min, Black/White, Beta SP NTSC)

Coming to terms with the end of the industrial era, They Were Here is an elegant and eloquently composed study that reverberates with lives lived, fading images and relics of retrospection. El-Beik makes a tightly drawn piece about public space, private contemplation and an ephemeral sensibility. More

The Night

 (al-Leyl), by Mohammad Malas (Syria, 1992, 116 min, Color, 35 mm)

The Night is set in the village of Quneytra, which borders on the Golan, a key battlefield in the 1967 war between Syria and Israel. We are led to the grave of the filmmakers’ father, an old Syrian fighter who joined the volunteer armies in Palestine in the Great Revolt of 1936. Trying to exorcise feelings of shame and humiliation that have long accompanied the image of his father and the village occupied by Israelis during the war of 1967, Malas tries to restore his father's history and give him a more honorable death. But tracing the outline of a memory tortured by burning questions finds only bitter answers. The film is Malas' second feature, often perceived as the ‘prequel’ to his first, equally visually stunning, Dreams of the City. The film earned five awards, including, The Golden Tanit at the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage, in Tunisia in 1992, and the Silver Palm at the Valencia Film Festival, Spain, 1993. More

Sacrifices

 (Sunduq ad-Dunya) by Oussama Mohammad (Syria/France, 2002, 113 min, Color, 35mm)

A fantastic and visually captivating cinematic fable, Sacrifices reflects on how violence and power legitimize themselves, producing rituals and a vocabulary to perpetuate themselves. It portrays the life of a large family held together by the absolute power of its patriarch, the grandfather, who fertilized the land, started the family, built the house and planted a large tree around which their lives revolve. The film opens as the grandfather is dying, and the family surrounds him in anguish and uncertainty. Life begins with death, young men are born as the patriarch expires, and fathers and heroes come back from the war only to dissolve into mud. Selected at Cannes Film Festival's «Un Certain Regard. More

Step by Step (Khutwa Khutwa)

 Randa Chahal Sabbagh (Lebanon; 1978, 70 min.)

Tue. May 11, 2:15 p.m. & 6:15 p.m.
Screens with Another Time Another Lebanon (Liban d’autrefois). Total run time is 81 minutes.

Going beyond the headlines and drawing on years of research, Randa Chahal Sabbagh burrows deep into the complex causes of the civil war that erupted in 1975, including societal inequities, the contradictions of power-sharing among religious communities, and the greater Arab-Israeli conflict. More

A Plate of Sardines

 (Tabaq el-Sardin), by Omar Amiralay (Syria/France, 1997, 17 min, Color, DigiBeta PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

The first time I heard of Israel, I was in Beirut, the conversation was about a plate of sardines. I was six years old, Israel was two.» In the company of filmmaker Mohammad Malas, Omar Amiralay revisits the ruins of the destroyed village of Quneytra. The film has been subtitled in English especially for this program. More

There Are Many Things left I Would Like To Say…

 (Hunalika Ashiya’ Kathira Kana Yumken an Yatahadath ‘Anha al-Mare’…), by Omar Amiralay (Syria/France, 1997, 50 min, Color, DigiBeta PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

A few months before the passing of his friend and close collaborator dramaturge Sa‘adallah Wannus, Amiralay listens to his friend's somber and relentless words, a farewell to a generation for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the source of all disillusion. More

Before Vanishing

 (Qabla el-Ikhtifa’), by Joude Gorani (France/Syria, 2005, 18 min, Color, DigiBETA PAL)

In Before Vanishing, filmmaker Joude Gorani travels from the beginning to the end of the Barada river that surrounds the capital city of Damascus. Often deemed iconic of nature's wondrous beauty, we discover how the Barada river has suffered from exploitation, neglect, pollution and unplanned urbanization. The film also uncovers the transformation of the river's social life and provides an intelligent measure of the distance between ideology and reality, in contemporary Syria. More

Everyday Life in a Syrian Village

 (al-Hayat al-Yaomiyyah fi Qaryah Suriyyah) by Omar Amiralay (Syria, 1974, 85 min, B&W, DigiBeta PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

The first documentary to present an unabashed critique of the impact of the Syrian government's agricultural and land reforms, Everyday Life in a Syrian Village delivers a powerful jab at the state's conceit of redressing social and economic inequities. Interviews with farmers, health workers and a police officer contrast the peasants’ regard for the state with the mindset of state representatives toward those peasants. Sa'adallah Wannus, a prominent Syrian playwright and essayist collaborated with documentary pioneer Amiralay on the project. The film remains banned in Syria. The original print has been restored and digitized very recently, and subtitled in English especially for this program. More

The Misfortunes of Some…

 (Massa’ibu Qawmen…), (France/Lebanon, 1981, 52 min, Color, DigiBETA PAL)

Hajj Ali runs a funeral home in Beirut, he came into his profession during the Lebanese civil war. While he is grateful for delivering a “customer” daily, he also works as a taxi driver, transporting the living across the city. The lived quotidian of the civil war is staged with a tragi-comic tone to reflect on the collective madness More

The Sarcophagus of Love

 (Al-Hobb al-Maw’ood), (France, 1983, 52 min, Color, DigiBETA PAL)

Whether lawyer, janitor, actor, or young bachelor, in Egypt the role of women has changed, they take risks choosing to live on their own, unwed or divorced. The film paints the changing status of intimacy in Egypt at the turn of the 1980s. More

The Chickens

 (al-Dajaj) by Omar Amiralay (Syria, 1977, 40 minutes, B&W, DigiBeta PAL and DV-Cam NTSC))

Produced by Syrian television, this film remains banned in Syria. The inhabitants of Sadad, a village in the Syrian countryside are seduced by promises that chicken farming will make them rich. After they abandon their usual activities, their investment turns to disaster under the watchful gaze of government officials driving Mercedes cars. Under the guise of documenting chicken farms, the filmmaker delivers a scathing critique of his government, and foretells the massive failure of its policies which have brought poverty and hunger to its people. The original print has been restored and digitized, and subtitled in English especially for this program. More

Film-Essai on the Euphrates Dam

 (Film-Muhawalah ‘An Sadd al-Furat) by Omar Amiralay (Syria, 12 minutes, B&W, 1970, DigiBETA PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

This first film by the veteran documentary filmmaker Omar Amiralay follows the construction of a dam on the Euphrates river that is supposed to bring tremendous improvement in the lives of villages around it. Thirty years later, the filmmaker will revisit the site in Flood in Baath Country, and the enthusiasm once generated by the Baath. The original print has been restored and digitized very recently, and subtitled in English especially for this program. More

A Flood in Baath Country

 (Tufan fi Balad el-Ba‘th) by Omar Amiralay (Syria/France, 2003, 46 min, Color, DigiBeta PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

In 1970, Omar Amiralay made a short documentary, Film-Essai on the Euphrates Dam, in praise of the ruling Baath party's project to construct an impressive system of dams. Today, after fatal construction flaws have been discovered, his controversial new film explores the metaphorical implications of such weakness. Without commentary or criticism, Amiralay's film exposes Baath party propaganda and its debilitating effects on the people of al-Mashi village, 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Damascus. The camera moves slowly from students to teachers to government officials, with everyone reciting the exact same praises for the president and slogans glorifying the Baath party. The film is the harshest indictment yet of the regime, portraying the devastating effects of 35 years of rigid Baath party rule on Syrian society. More

The Wash

 (Vaskeriet) by Hisham el-Zouki (Syria/Norway, 2005, 8 minutes, Color, DigiBETA NTSC)

Taking the dirty laundry takes on new meanings in The Wash. Two immigrants in Norway, working as cleaners for a company entrusted to prepare the site for the visit of the U.S. president, are suddenly thrown into disarray when blood begins to drip from the U.S. flag hanging high on its mast. The Wash is crafted like a caustic allegorical fable about perceptions of the U.S., and leaves the viewer with an open-ended field of interpretation More

The Pot

 (al-Qarura)) by Diana el-Jeiroudi (Syria, 2004, 20 min, Color, DigiBETA PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

The Pot is a short, unconventional documentary that gives space for women to express themselves freely about the experience of pregnancy and its impact on their relationships with their bodies, in the shadow of a society that still regards them as vessels to carry progeny. More

The Dream

 (al-Manam) by Mohammad Malas (Syria, 1981, 45 min, Color, DigiBETA PAL and DV-Cam NTSC)

Filmed in Sabra and Shatila, Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, shortly before the massacre in 1982, this documentary's principle reference is dreams, and not lived reality. It plays on this double register, where women, children, elderly and combatants speak the reality of their everyday, transposed eerily, in dreams, nightmares and premonitions. Ultimately they converge on what the Palestinians have lost: their homeland and a life with dignity. More