Tag: Syrian War

Taste of Cement

Posted on by victorfraga

More than one million Syrian refugees live in Lebanon. Some estimates are as high as 1.5 million, and the country currently holds the highest refugee per capita rate in the world. Many of them work as builders, never leaving the construction sites. Taste of Cement portrays the sad and hurtful reality of these men as they erect a new skyscraper in Beirut, the country’s capital. In the unbearably hot weather, the constant construction noises aren’t just an annoying buzz: it evoke the sounds and traumatic memories of war, bombing and ruins.

Director Ziad Kalthoum revisits the dark experiences of the never-ending Syrian disaster through the portrayal of builders in exile. This film is visually compelling and tremendously poetic. It essays the barbaric conditions of Syrian workers in exile who survived tragic collapses of their houses and their cities but soon after found themselves working and living in yet another hellhole.

In their dark miserable cemented habitats somewhere in Beirut, a newsman or journalist on a small TV screen reports that racism towards Syrian refugees is spreading in Middle Eastern country. Sadly this isn’t a phenomenon confined to Lebanon: the media rhetoric regarding Syrian refugees isn’t particularly positive in countries such as the UK and the US. Research published last year points out that amongst others, the rightwing press in the UK endorses an ongoing anti-refugee approach.

The contrast between the present and past is seen in eyes, the skin and the soul of the workers who are never able to escape what they saw and what they still see. Their dreams of the past are gone, and the future ahead doesn’t look bright. The taste of cement from the destruction left behind as well as from the cement found in exile is well and alive in their collective memory. “Cement eats your skin, not just your soul”, the commentator’s voice cries, as they never stop working.

The situation in Syria is becoming increasingly hopeless, and Taste of Cement challenges the notion that “home is not where the heart is”. Home is nowhere to these refugees because their hearts have been destroyed along with everything else. Have modern societies become heartless and merciless, or have always been this way?

Taste of Cement is an 85-minute-long mournful and mostly silent journey. It is a raw documentary forging intimacy between the subject and space. The film is very thought-provoking piece. These people, like many buildings, are wrecked inside and even sleeping can be a painful and difficult task. Several moments are very disturbing to watch, and sordid reminder of what it’s like to be stuck in a warzone or a non-white refugee in the 21st century.

The imagery is the most striking element of the film, and a heartfelt powerful commentary about the past and the memoirs of a destroyed homeland (the filmmaker Ziad Kalthoum is a Syrian refugee himself). Taste of Cement is a poem without rhymes, a strict rhythm and structure. Ultimately, this is a film about “freedom” in captivity, the difficulties of detaching yourself from a stigma, and the pains of being a refugees in a world that rejects you. It raises a lot of questions about our complicity as viewers.

Taste of Cement is showing on September 5th at the opening of the Open City Documentary Film Festival in London.

The author of this piece Art Haxhijakupi experienced the 1999 Kosovo War as a child. He immigrated to Western Europe as a war refugee.

City of Ghosts

Posted on by victorfraga

A[/dropcap/s often is the case when it comes to documenting wars and conflicts around the world, the reality is sometimes far more shocking than any documentarian is able convey. Violent images from the forefront of Isil’s devastating hold over the city of Raqqa in Syria are replayed to audiences around the world, daily. From public beheadings and executions at gunpoint to the reckless destruction of ancient artifacts, no one could have ever imagined that the people of one of the most ancient countries in the Middle East would suffer this greatly at the hands of a small yet determined groups of fanatics.

In City Of Ghosts, Academy Award winning director Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land, 2015), takes on the plight of a group of men fighting to have the cries of their once great city heard. In this shocking yet essential movie, Heineman follows the journey of the members of a group calling themselves “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”. This small coalition of anonymous-activists-turned-citizen-journalists managed to put themselves in the firing line by bravely exposing the barbarism of Islamic State. With intel from inside the occupied city, the men managed to run a website documenting what took place after a vacuum of power resulted in the occupation of Raqqa by Isil for years.

Offered incredible access to the men and, in some cases, their own family members, Heineman deftly allows his subjects to tell their own stories without injecting himself too much into their narrative. Stories of violence and murder coming out of the city are neither sanitised nor fetishised by the director. Using Isil’s own footage found online, the director allows his subjects to talk about the unimaginable ordeal they went through since the moment they started speaking out against their invaders.

From Aziz, co-founder and spokesman, who says he only got the job because his “english doesn’t suck too much”, to Hamoud who was once active in the early days of the Syrian revolution, the men speak of their frustration of seeing their own Arab Spring hijacked by a group of opportunists. Former Law School student Hassan, talks of the early days of the revolutionary movement which turned into a nightmare for him and his friends. While teacher turned reporter Mohamad found himself fleeing Raqqa when it became clear that he could no longer guarantee his own safety.

With a timely release after the liberation of Mosul last week, City Of Ghosts is likely to ignite interest in the stories behind the barbaric face of a rogue state which went on to destroy the lives of anyone that dared oppose it. As Heineman follows his subjects to Germany where they speak of their love for their homeland and the mixed reception they have had since moving to Europe, questions about what the future holds remain unanswered. Allowing those without a voice to put across their stories, will no doubt gain Heineman more accolades, but for all intents and purposes, it is his subjects who deserve every award and accolade just by remaining true to their mission to report the truth.

City of Ghosts is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, July 21st.

Click here for our review of the equally jarring and powerful Insyriated (Philippe van Leeuw), which is out in UK cinemas in September.

Insyriated

Posted on by victorfraga

Our home is normally our most sacred space, and our family members are typically the people whom we cherish the most. Few people can fathom the anguish and the pain of having to protect both of those, thereby endangering your own life. Now Belgian director Philippe van Leeuw has placed cinema-goes in such situation.

For 85 minutes you will have to wear the shoes of Oum Yazan (in a rivetting performance delivered by the Palestinian actress and film director Hiam Abbass), as she does everything within reach in order to protect her family inside her flat in Damascus, as the Syrian War is just beginning to loom. You will be locked with Oum and seven other people in the relative safety of her middle-class dwelling, while a cannonade of bombs and machine gun fire explodes outside.

It’s very easy to relate to the characters in Insyriated because they are very real. This is the type of film that everyone who opposes to their country taking in refugees should see. Oum, her three children, her daughter’s boyfriend, her father-in-law, her neighbour and her baby (whom she’s also harbouring in her makeshift fortress) are ordinary people, just like you and me. They have films posters on their wall, vases with flowers in their lounge and they sit around the table for dinner. They love each other, and they are capable of compassion and solidarity. They are deeply human, unlike the snipers and the rapists outside who have seemingly shed their own humanity is the name of war.

In Insyriated, it’s the women who have to bear the brunt of violence and stay firm and in control at the face of adversity. Oum and her neighbour Halima (Diamand Abou Abboud) have to make enormous sacrifices in the name of others. They are in charge of the young and the elderly, and they must not allow their weaknesses to show. They have to make the most difficult decisions, and they know that the wrong movement could lead to instant tragedy. They are not weak and vulnerable human being. Quite the opposite: these females are the real warriors, even if they never take arms.

Urgent in its simplicity, the effective Insyriated will haunt you for some time. It’s a painful reminder that tragedy can strike at anytime, and that there is no such thing as a safe home. It’s also a call for action: every country should open their doors to Oum, Halima and their families.

The director Philippe van Leeuw attended the premiere screening at the Berlinale and explained that the film takes place at a time when the world was paying attention to the war Lybia and dismissing the situation in Syria as unimportant. He expressed gratitude to the Germans for “welcoming” Syrian refugees, while reproaching other countries for not doing the same.

Insyriated showed at the Panorama Section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2017, when this piece was originally written. The film is out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 8th.

Insyriated is on out top 10 films of 2017 – click here for the full list.