Julia Meltzer, Director of Dalya's Other Country
Dalya's Other Country follows my last film, The Light in Her Eyes, which was about a Quran school for women and girls in Damascus, Syria. On and off from 2005 to 2010 I lived in Damascus and often traveled to Aleppo. Witnessing the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world where ancient trade routes, commerce and culture were active--despite constraints imposed by the Syrian regime--made a deep impression on me. In 2012, while we were in distribution of The Light in Her Eyes, the city of Aleppo was in the process of being destroyed by civil war. I wanted to document a family or an individual connected to this city. My daughter was born in 2012, and I no longer had the flexibility to travel and leave home as I had for my previous film, so I searched for a way to tell a story about Aleppo from close to home. I met Dalya and her mother, Rudayna, shortly after they arrived in California from Aleppo and knew that I had found a compelling story.
Dalya and Rudayna's move to Los Angeles is not the typical Syrian refugee story that has dominated the news. They are a middle-class family with American citizenship; they had not suffered life in a refugee camp or tried to cross the Mediterranean in a raft. Nonetheless, they were struggling to adjust to a new culture and the loss of their home. Their story offers a lens into how a traditional Sunni woman and young girl try to hold onto their customs and traditions within the United States, which they sometimes perceive as an unwelcoming place.
The city that Dalya and Rudayna now inhabit is both familiar and unfamiliar to American viewers. The Southern California teenage lifestyle is ubiquitous, but Dalya inhabits a very particular subset of this community--an Arab and Muslim immigrant world. The home life of most Muslims, especially women, is very private. I have been able to shoot with this family over an extended period of time and this has allowed me to get to know them, gain their trust and gradually understand their issues and challenges in a deeper way. Dalya's Other Country is made in the tradition of observational cinema, favoring intimate cinematography and an emphasis on placing the audience in close connection with the subject matter. The scenes are edited to immerse the viewers in Dalya and Rudayna's world and create a human connection with the subjects so audiences understand the world from their perspective.
Note: The following essay originally appeared on The New York Times. See the original piece here.
Daphne Matziaraki, Director of 4.1 Miles
When I returned home to Greece last fall to make a film about the refugee crisis, I discovered a situation I had never imagined possible. The turquoise sea that surrounds the beautiful Greek island of Lesbos, just 4.1 miles from the Turkish coast, is these days a deadly gantlet, choked with terrified adults and small children on flimsy, dangerous boats. I had never seen people escaping war before, and neither had the island's residents. I couldn't believe there was no support for these families to safely escape whatever conflict had caused them to flee. The scene was haunting.
Regardless of the hardship Greeks have endured from the financial crisis, for a long time my home country has by and large been a peaceful, safe and easy place to live. But now Greece is facing a new crisis, one that threatens to undo years of stability, as we struggle to absorb the thousands of desperate migrants who pour across our borders every day. A peak of nearly 5,000 entered Greece each day last year, mainly fleeing conflicts in the Middle East.
The Greek Coast Guard, especially when I was there, has been completely unprepared to deal with the constant flow of rescues necessary to save refugees from drowning as they attempt to cross to Europe from Turkey. When I was there filming, Lesbos had about 40 local coast guard officers, who before the refugee crisis generally spent their time conducting routine border patrols. Most didn't have CPR training. Their vessels didn't have thermal cameras or any equipment necessary for tremendous emergencies.
Suddenly, the crew was charged with keeping the small bit of water they patrolled from becoming a mass grave. Each day, thousands of refugees crossed the water on tiny, dangerous inflatable rafts. Most of the passengers, sometimes including whoever was operating the boat, had never seen the sea. Often a motor would stall and passengers would be stranded for hours, floating tenuously on a cold, volatile sea. Or the bottom of a dinghy would simply tear away and all the passengers would be cast into the water. The coast guard felt completely abandoned, they told me, as if the world had left them to handle a huge humanitarian crisis--or allow thousands to drown offshore.
I followed a coast guard captain for three weeks as he pulled family after family, child after child, from the ocean and saved their lives. All the ones in this film were shot on a single day, October 28, 2015. Two additional rescues happened that same day but were not included.
The problem is far from over. Many of the refugees come from Syria, where Russia is intensifying bombings that are killing thousands of civilians and devastating Syrian cities. The United States is planning to respond. According to the Greek Coast Guard, thousands of families with children are lining up along Turkish shores to make the unsafe crossing to Greece.
In making this film, I was struck by the fine lines that separate us, the moments when our paths cross fleetingly, and we look at one another for the first time and sometimes for the last. This film shows that crucial moment between life and death, where regardless of political beliefs, fears or preparation, some people will go beyond themselves to save a stranger.
And it raises questions about our collective responsibility--the choices we all make for ourselves, and for others. We don't all confront the refugee crisis with the same immediacy as the coast guard captain portrayed here. But as our world becomes more interconnected, and more violent, we do all face a choice--would we act as he does, to save the life of stranger? Or would we turn away?
Colleen Cassingham and Alex Lederman, Directors of From Damascus to Chicago
There's a narrative we can't escape: Those poor Syrian families over there. We watch the news coverage and feel sad--for a moment. Then we go back to our everyday lives. That moment of sadness has passed. But that sympathy is only on a macro-scale; we don't take each individual life seriously. After all, they're in the Middle East. We feel bad that people are dying, but we don't consider their lives equivalent to our own. It's not intentional, but it's so easy to look away.
We can't bring them here. Their way of life isn't like ours. They might be terrorists.
Few who say things like this have ever met a refugee. We wanted to tell a surprising story of human dignity in the present--one that could be about your family--rather than one of past horror and pitiable circumstances. It's true that the Obidat family saw family members killed, suffered displacement multiple times and continues to deal with the emotional and financial stress of a cancer diagnosis in the family. But since finally reaching Chicago in 2015, Mohammad, Asmaa, Retaj and Akram have made a new life for themselves and have found joy and stability again. Through this film, we hope to bridge the gap people see between themselves and refugees, both near and distant.
As student filmmakers, we brought unbridled enthusiasm but limited experience to this project. Colleen was largely self-taught and had shot two short documentaries on her own while studying in Morocco and Tunisia. Alex was (and still is) an overcommitted, dogged and talented journalism student. The Obidat family are the warmest, kindest, most resilient people we know. We met them when Colleen volunteered with their upstairs neighbors, also Syrian refugees, teaching them English through the Syrian Community Network. The Obidats were gracious enough to welcome us into their lives, invite us to family barbecues and, eventually, let us tell their story. Although their histories vary dramatically from our own, there is little that separates us.
Still, we cannot forget the loneliness and isolation that comes with being a refugee. The Obidats grapple daily with the fear that they may not make ends meet. They are so deserving of comfort and peace of mind. But they don't wait for it to be bestowed upon them. Instead, they create it.
We hope this film inspires Americans to welcome refugees--and not just the ones with cute, photogenic kids--into their communities, on the basis that every human has a right to seek and find safety. This family is flourishing in part because their community has pitched in to provide resources and relationships that pick up where meager resettlement provisions end. Fundraising, donations, sponsorship of dance and music classes, passing job opportunities through word-of-mouth and volunteers for language instruction have provided stepping stones to full independence.
Though they could have folded, bent and broken under the circumstances of their life, the Obidats embraced every opportunity and pushed forward. Their new life in Chicago expands before them, as they jettison fear and doubt and reach for the future.
Justice and peace aren't zero-sum games. A collective insistence that we care for the most vulnerable in our world (who are by no means the weakest) can only enrich all.
Obaidah Zytoon and Andreas Dalsgaard, Directors of The War Show
The War Show is based on footage gathered by Obaidah Zytoon while she lived in Syria and took part in the uprising there. Some she shot herself; some was shot by friends. As we studied this footage together, it became obvious that it contained moments of immense power. But the collection had a very fragmented nature. Telling a coherent story without jeopardizing those moments for the sake of dramatic storytelling became our challenge. The movie is told in chapters to give the story an open-ended quality and to let the audience explore the scenes on their own. We don't connect all the dots; rather, we let the audience do it.
With this form of storytelling, a complex reality emerged that to us shows a more human perspective of Syria and its war. It does so by challenging each interpretation of that moment. How did these events really happen? What is the role of the camera? How do people act toward the camera? What is the construction of self and society that plays out in front of our eyes?
The War Show was based on hundreds of hours of conversations. From there, we culled a selection of moments that would make it into the film. We wanted to tell a personal story about the fate of Obaidah and her friends within the bigger context of the Syrian regime's oppression. And we wanted to lay bare the fate of millions of people who today are suffering from the events in Syria, whether they are refugees in exile, or children and adults still struggling for survival inside the country. How do we comprehend their sense of being in the world? How do we gain an understanding of the tragedy they all endure? And how do we avoid exploiting their fates for the sake of entertainment, and instead gain a deeper understanding of the situation itself?
There are many important things to be said about the Syrian conflict. We, as a world community, are only beginning to grasp its repercussions. No other conflict has been filmed as much, yet the truth continues to evade us. As we analyze and learn from this ongoing tragedy, a new reality emerges based on old patterns. The global game of power played by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, the United States and Turkey has turned Syrian soil into a proxy-war battlefield. Yet the desire for self-determination on the part of the Syrian people that led to the uprising in 2011 is not gone. This film shows what happened on the ground and in people's minds. The horror of terrorism in Syria and in the larger world today is a deeply human tragedy, which can be explained and must be understood. It could have been different if the international will had been there.
The truth hides in the details. We strongly believe that when each detail is studied thoroughly and honestly, a more complete picture emerges. This is important not for the sake of entertainment, but in the interest of writing history. We wanted to leave the world a document that will have real value in years to come.
Feras Fayyad, Director of Last Men in Aleppo
I'm here to share a story made of blood and tears. I am here because I believe in the ability of film to bring justice to Syria.
The peaceful Syrian uprising of 2011 developed into an armed conflict once the ruling regime of Bashar Al-Assad chose to respond with military force. The war in Syria gradually transformed into a dark hole that began destroying the civilian population, and the line between right and wrong became blurred. Officials in all factions were exhibiting Machiavellian behavior, meaning they were compromising principles and ethics in their efforts to achieve their goals. Civilians were glad to put their trust and confidence in the one group that distinguished itself from the rest. I'm talking about those providing civil defense, the group known in the international community as the White Helmets.
In March 2011, I was twice held by members of Assad's intelligence services after I made a film about freedom of speech. In a secret prison, I saw humanitarian workers held alongside artists and journalists; I witnessed men, women and children being tortured to death.
In 2013, I began to develop the idea for this film as I followed Raed Saleh, who later became the leader of the White Helmets. He was organizing ordinary people into a volunteer brigade that would deal with the massive air strikes that hit their streets and homes; I accompanied them to places just after bombs had fallen. They saved the lives of hundreds of children and families. Soon they were targeted directly by the regime and by Russian drone strikes. Many died, leaving their families with no means of support. Yet the people I was filming only grew more determined to continue their work to save victims. I was astonished by their ability to turn loss into motivation to continue searching for life under the rubble.
This made me think about how to convey the nature of this war, as seen through the eyes of these people. I wanted to explore their inner psychological worlds to understand the struggles that they lived through. A film would offer a chance to demonstrate how repulsive the war in Syria was and to raise questions regarding the value and dignity of human life. It could also shine a light on the role of international law in the prosecution of war criminals and how important it is to hold them accountable for their involvement in fostering extremism, terrorism and mass killings.
This film also speaks to the power of using art and documentary filmmaking to illustrate the absurdity of war. One moment stayed with me: Khaled, our main subject, extends his hand to save a victim trapped under debris. The image looks exactly like Michelangelo's fresco of the creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which shows God and Adam reaching their hands toward each other. It is a moment that illustrates the value of the human touch, and a cry for closer examination of the horror of war and any situation that requires us to take control of our lives. The film provides a pathway to discussing these issues, so that we might broach the subjects of isolationism and nationalist, political and religious extremism.
Our heroes save all victims, even those who have caused the deaths of their fellow White Helmets. This film is a tool for achieving forgiveness and overcoming vengeance, and I don't think it's too grandiose to say that this film can assist in our search for the meaning of life. It can inspire audiences to look closely at the gift of giving one's life so that another may live. Hopefully, through the film the White Helmets will earn the recognition they deserve. And, of course, I am hopeful that when people are given a clear-eyed view of the Syrian civil war, they will be motivated to take action to stop this ongoing tragedy by seeking peace in Syria and helping the people who are asking for help.
War brings out the worst in human beings, but it also brings out the best in us. The White Helmets are a living example of that. Last Men in Aleppo is their story.