Synopsis
Nearly 10 years after the beginning of the Syrian revolution, three Syrian activists – Yadan, Odai and Rani – reunite on a theatre stage in Paris. Through life-size projections, Syrian director Rami Farah confronts the three men with footage, some of it their own, depicting events that changed their destinies forever. Watching the brutal footage together, they reflect on their personal journeys, revive their collective memory, and wonder what is left of their hopes and dreams. Their reunion serves as a unique window into the complexity of the situation in Syria, where a peaceful uprising was replaced by a ferocious war.
Denmark, France, Palestine
2021
Arabic with English subtitles
90 minutes
16+
Director: Rami Farah
Screenwriter: Rami Farah, Dima Saber
Cinematography: Henrik Bohn Ipsen
Editing: Gladys Joujou
Sound: Henrik Garnov
Music: Kinan Azdeh
Producer/s: Signe Byrge Sørensen (Final Cut for Real), Liana Saleh, Anne Köhncke
Rami Farah is a Syrian dancer, actor and filmmaker born in Damascus,1980. He studied dance in Damascus at the High Institute for Dramatic Arts and graduated from The Arab Film Institute in 2007. A son of exiled parents, he now finds himself in exile as well. Throughout his oeuvre, themes of belonging and displacement recur, perhaps most pronounced in Farah’s first feature-length documentary A Comedian in a Syrian Tragedy (2019) that sees Farah follow his beloved subject, famous Syrian actor Fares Helou, into exile in France, and in Farah’s most recent work Our Memory Belongs to Us (2021).
Rami Farah is a Syrian filmmaker, actor and performer, born in 1980 and currently based in Paris. He first studied dance in Damascus at the High Institute for Dramatic Arts and has attended many training courses and workshops in contemporary film and dance. His first films and videos both use a blend of dance and audiovisual material. “ZamKan”, made in 2004, unfolds as a dialogue between a ceiling fan and a chair in a silent room. It was followed by “Point”, a short arts video that was screened in several exhibitions and festivals around the world.