Hala Al-Abdallah,
Ammar Al-Beik
2006.
Syrian Arab Republic.
vo Arabic.
s French.
110’
A journey through the Syrian landscape, featuring interviews with three dissidents who long ago left Syria for France. The filmmaker presents a poetic portrait of her friends, who have chosen to go into exile.
Abdallah begins on a journey through the Syrian landscape and settles down near the sea, pondering over the impact of poetry on daily life. She records the almost forgotten life stories of Syrian dissidents, digging deeper and deeper into their world, the world of people who have chosen to live in a foreign country, where they have gone into internal exile.
"In this film, the map of my country, Syria, boils down to friends and roads travelled while location scouting I talk to these roads, I express my doubts and certainties as I look for locations for the films I have dreamt of making for the last twenty years My girlfriends confess before my camera, speak for me and clear the mist before my eyes I seek refuge near the sea: it is my forgotten childhood, my mystery, the sacred tomb of poetry I share the terrain of this intimate film with Ammar, who captures Youssef, my husband on camera and returns him to me laden with his paintings and his gentile exile Ammar helps me to act and to put the films I dreamt of making into a single film A film like a puzzle in black and white, made up of journeys and returns that speak of prison and exile, the past and the present, love and death A film that speaks of the importance of poetry".