Shot in the destroyed village of Ain Fit in the occupied Syrian Golan, where a woman meticulously tidies up a room in a ruined house. Maddah’s film poetically attempts capturing an individual’s efforts of creating intimacy and familiarity in a violent territory filled with tragedy and destruction.
Feb. 4th, 2011: The family is getting ready to demonstrate. The crowds go wild and scream: ”We want to bring down the dictatorship of Mubarak who humiliated Egyptians during the past three decades”.
May 27, 2011: Thirteen-year old Syrian boy Hamza al-Khateeb is shot and tortured to death in Dera’a. The Syrian streets rise up.
The film is a reflection on life, death and political commitment.
Patras is one of Greece’s main ports on the Adriatic Sea, a few hundred kilometers west is the Italian coast. For the last 15 years, migrants have come to Patras because it is an exit gate, the last port of call for those hoping to carry on their journey to Western Europe. The film follows those who survive everyday life in Patras, who look back at the times when migrants made public demands, and wonder what the future holds.
A Palestinian poet and an Italian journalist meet five Palestinians and Syrians who entered Europe after fleeing the war in Syria in Milan. They decide to help them complete their journey to Sweden – and hopefully avoid getting themselves arrested as traffickers – by faking a wedding.
This emotionally charged journey not only brings out stories of hopes and dreams, but also reveals an unknown side of Europe – a transnational, supportive and irreverent Europe that ridicules laws and restrictions of the Fortress in masquerade.
Shot in the heart of Damascus during the beginning of the revolution, the movie captures daily Damascene life. While the filmmaker is completing his mandatory military service in the Syrian army, he goes back to his home, where he sheds his military uniform and returns to his civilian life, working as an assistant director to filmmaker Mohammed Malas.
To make sense of this schizophrenic situation, he decides to take his camera and starts shooting a ‘making-of’ that will eventually go beyond Malas’ film.