Link to the original article from here   Late in the summer of 2018, the offices of Bidayyat – a five-year-old organization supporting artists and filmmakers from Syria – were being pulled in opposite directions. About half a dozen people were working in a warren of rooms located on the top floor of an unassuming apartment building in the Beirut neighbourhood of Gemmayzeh, a few doors down from the Arab Image Foundation and seven stories above the restaurant Le Chef, which is famous for being both... more

Link to the original article: https://quinlan.it/2018/09/05/still-recording/     Guerra e cinema, mirino e obiettivo, to shoot. Diretto da Saeed Al Batal e da Ghiath Ayoub, Still Recording è allo stesso tempo un saggio di teoria cinematografica e una scioccante inchiesta sul conflitto siriano. In concorso alla Settimana Internazionale della Critica, tra i titoli più importanti di Venezia 75. Lo stato delle cose Saeed è un giovane cinefilo che cerca di insegnare ai giovani di Ghouta, in Siria, le... more

C’è un dialogo ne Lo stato delle cose di Wim Wenders (Der Stand der Dinge, 1982) che fa al caso nostro. Friedrich, il regista, sta discutendo con Gordon, il produttore, sulla natura del cinema: «Quando entra la storia la vita se ne va», sostiene; ovvero: allorché nel cinema prevale la narrazione il “dal vero” diventa flebile e la “vita” diventa storia, se ne va. Gordon ribatte che «un film senza storia è... more

Link to the article: here   DOHA: In 2012 a young Tunisian woman went to a nightclub to party with some friends. There she met a young man and they eventually left together. Later three policemen found the couple kissing and, after extorting money from him, the three found it fit to rape her repeatedly.Traumatized, the young woman struggled to have doctors document her attackers’ semen so she could press charges. She... more

  In an increasingly appalling atmosphere of political stagnation, failed negotiations, and yet another ceasefire that won’t last, there is at least some good news coming out from Syria these days. A new wave of talented filmmakers is silently but powerfully emerging in the midst of a social media-driven compulsion to upload images nonstop and share them in real time.   In the immediate aftermath of the March 2011 uprising, Syrian activists and... more

    ‘Yaman’ c’est le nouveau court-métrage saisissant des artistes syriens du collectif Maajooneh qui a pu être réalisé grâce notamment au soutien de l’ONG Bidayyat. Ce film est donc l’œuvre d’artistes exilés depuis quelques années, au Liban et en Turquie, qui racontent par leur art l’anéantissement progressif de toute forme d’innocence dans leur pays et pour le peuple syrien.   Après avoir réalisé un court-métrage intitulé ‘Fade To Black’, qui évoquait la transformation... more

  THE caption included in the closing credits brings you up short and reminds you just how perilous life is in Syria. During the four months it took to make the short film, ‘Siege’, one film-maker lost his father to a sniper from the Assad regime. Another was almost kidnapped, and a third was killed during an ISIS attack on the Palestinian Yarmouk Camp in Damascus. The casualties did not end there. The... more

  Eine wiederkehrende Erzählweise in den Dokumentarfilmen mehrerer Sektionen: Menschen, die ihre eigenen Flucht- und Migrationsgeschichten filmen. In „Les Sauteurs“ (Forum) dokumentiert Abou Bakar Sidibé aus Mali, wie er versucht den Zaun zwischen Marokko und der spanischen Exklave Melilla zu überqueren – mit der Kamera, die ihm zwei europäische Dokumentarfilmer gegeben haben. In „Life on the Border“ (Generation 14plus) haben Filmemacher Kinder und Jugendliche angeleitet, ihr Leben in den Flüchtlingslagern von... more

Mohammad Ali Atassi’s new documentary about Syria, Our Terrible Country, (Baladna Alraheeb) defines itself by what it is not. It is not a tutorial on the Syrian civil war. It is not a macabre spectacle of bodies, victims of either the Assad regime or ISIS. Instead, it’s a portrait of two very different faces of the Syrian left—one, the film’s co-director Ziad Homsi, a young filmmaker turned soldier in the Free... more

BEIRUT, Lebanon — In the early scenes of the Syrian documentary “Our Terrible Country,” the leftist writerYassin al-Haj Saleh explores the ruins of a rebellious Damascus suburb, his clean-shaven face, Lenin-style cap and pristine clothes marking him as a recent arrival from the mostly intact government-controlled downtown. The camera and the man behind it, a young photographer and sometime insurgent calling himself Ziad al-Homsi, approach Mr. Saleh with reverence. It is mid-2013,... more

IN THE SUMMER OF 2013, the Syrian writer Yassin al-Haj Saleh took a dangerous journey from the rebel-held city of Douma to his hometown of Raqqa, now the headquarters of the so-called Islamic State, across the border to southern Turkey and on to Istanbul. One of the foremost intellectuals of his generation and widely considered the sage of the Syrian revolution (hakim al-thawra), Haj Saleh had been in hiding for two years. When... more

  The well-known Syrian writer and intellectual Yassin Haj Saleh left his home in Douma, met up with two film-maker friends in Raqqa, and all three continued to Turkey, filming their journey as they went. Yassin’s wife Samira remained behind, until Yassin could return for her – she has since been abducted.    Graham Douglas    Ziad Homsi has known Yassin since Yassin moved to Douma, and together with his friend Mohammed Ali Atassi, the... more

Syrian filmmakers are touring European film festivals this week, screening "Our Terrible Country," a film that explores an intergenerational friendship amid kidnappings, war and exile.    In this documentary, a young man named Ziad laughs with his white-haired companion, Yassin. They are in Turkey, having fled Syria after Ziad was captured and tortured by Islamic State militants. Yassin is in exile, fearing both the government and the Islamic State.   The film is not... more

    Correio Popular / 'Nosso Terrível País', de Mohamed Ali Atassi e Ziad Homsi, é antes de tudo, o que se pode chamar de filme necessário. Não pensamos muito na arte do cinema nem na linguagem ou qualquer detalhe estético. Estamos simplesmente diante de um documento filmado com uma pequena câmera e com a urgência que dele se solicita. O documentário acompanha o escritor Yassin Haj Saleh em sua fuga da... more

Il cortometraggio di un giovane siriano Siria, ecco Aleppo come non l'avete mai vista Orwa al Mokdad è un 29enne di Deraa e attraverso Bidayyat, ong siriana, mostra in "Being Good so Far" quello che, secondo lui, "non si vede sui media". Di sé dice: "Non sono un turista, né un giornalista. Sono un cittadino siriano e questa è la mia rivoluzione"   Orwa al Mokdad Siria, bombardamenti ad Aleppo. Almeno 16 morti Siria, pioggia di... more

BEIRUT: “Daaesh.” Yassin Haj Saleh pauses as if the word, the Arabic acronym for ISIS, were a question in need of an answer. “It’s a fitting name,” he answers himself, “for a monster.” Haj Saleh is sitting in Douma, in the eastern Ghouta, some 10 kilometers from central Damascus. Several weeks later, he and Syrian filmmaker Ziad Homsi have made the journey from Douma to Raqqa. “Daaesh,” Haj Saleh says, three months and several hundred kilometers beyond Raqqa, is... more

In at least one place where tomorrow feels lost, music still fills the gashed present with a kind of home-made mercy. The place is Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp outside Damascus, the present is a siege of over 450 days, and the music—unlike water and electricity–keeps flowing unstoppably from Ayham Ahmad’s battered upright piano.   Much more than a mere soundtrack, this music is the hero of the short, bittersweet documentary “I Am... more

Ganadora del más importante premio en la reciente edición del Festival de Cine de Marsella, Our Terrible Country de Mohammed Ali Atassi y Ziad Homsi es el relato de un exilio en plena guerra de Siria, vigente y que viene cobrando cientos de víctimas ante la inoperancia internacional. El mayor valor de este documental hecho al alimón radica en la inmediatez, en registrar desde el corazón mismo de este conflicto... more

Corre l’anno 2013, la Siria è entrata nel terzo anno di guerra civile. Siamo a Douma, una città a nord est di Damasco, liberata dai ribelli che combattono il regime al governo, ma trasformata dai ripetuti bombardamenti in un monotono loop di echi e macerie, un deserto sotto assedio, dove sono in pochi a resistere. È qui che inizia Our Terrible Country, Siria Libano 2014, il documentario di Mohammed Ali Atassi e Ziad Homsi,... more

Earlier this month at the FIDMarseille international film festival, the Competition Grand Prize went to a feature-length documentary called “Our Terrible Country.” This Syrian-Lebanese co-production was co-directed by Mohammed Ali Atassi and Ziad Homsi, Syrian filmmakers of two generations. A road movie of sorts, “Our Terrible Country” documents another inter-generational relationship. It follows dissident Syrian intellectual Yassin Haj Saleh as he treks from Douma, northeast of Damascus, to Raqqa, the northern... more

“Sage” is the title of 7:30 minutes short movie produced by Bidayyat and directed by Hani Mawed that tells the story of “the consecutive expulsions and displacements (in Arabic: Al Nakba — The catastrophe) that the Syrian Palestinians have suffered from in their lives, the latest being the expulsion from Syria” according to the words of the movie’s description here. The short movie takes place in Lebanon, somewhere by the sea,... more

Satire im Krieg   Ob Helge Schneider seine Finger im Spiel hatte? „Im Namen Gottes, des Barmherzigen!“ Das geht dem jungen Anführer flüssig über die Lippe, gar kein Problem. Beim Rest aber wird es schwierig: Wie heißt der Checkpoint nochmal, den wir befreit haben? Auch die Kameraden sind sich unsicher. Verdammt! Schnitt. Nicht jeder Islamist ist eben Superkämpfer und Medienprofi, auch, wenn es die Propaganda so will. Diese fünf jungen Männer geben ihr... more

Voilà deux ans et demi que les Syriens se font broyer méthodiquement. Deux ans et demi que nous filmons nous-mêmes les Syriens en train de se faire broyer. Deux ans et demi que le monde regarde nos images sans broncher. Comment croire en l'humanité après ça ? Ou comment croire que l'humanité reconnaît encore les Syriens pour siens ? La question est pourtant censée avoir été tranchée. Elle l'a été à... more

In February of 2013, in the northern side of Syria, over in a little town of Binnish, some extremists published a video showing a child being held on the shoulders of young men as he sings for Al-Qaida, Bin Laden and incited to kill the Alawites and Shiites in Syria. Few months after, the supporters of Assad from the “Fourth Brigade” of the Syrian Army (known for its act of the... more

The videos coming out of Syria of the nightmarish scenes of unspeakable violence and hatred have shaken people from around the world. It makes one doubt humanity and what some people are capable of: excruciatingly agonizing  decapitations and cannibalizing raw organs, on tape. I will not embed these gruesome videos here because I am still reeling from the carnage and gore. What’s worse is that children are present at these very... more

In March 1993, Kevin Carter took a photo of a starving Sudanese child crawling towards a UN relief camp less than a mile away. A few meters from the weary child stood a vulture, waiting for her death to begin his meal. Birds also must eat, and in southern Sudan they were eating because humans were not. Kevin Carter stood across from the vulture, lit a cigarette, and took his... more