Jun 15, 2024
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Feras Fayyad: Fighting the Syrian Regime Thru Film
by Doniphan Blair
Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad and colleague grab a sunset shot of bombed-out Damascus. photo: courtesy F. FayyadIF YOU HAPPENED TO MEET FERAS
Fayyad in the street, you might take him for a hipster bartender or a rave DJ—given his extreme bangs, single earring and designer pants—until he opens his mouth. As the words pour out, tumbling one on top of the other, phrasing and rephrasing what he's desperately trying to articulate in Arabic-inflected syntax, you soon grock Fayyad is an intellectual, an artist—a filmmaker, no less—with a lot on his mind.
“We never try to learn from this history,” he told me, sitting in a windowless room at San Francisco’s deluxe Fairmont Hotel, where his publicist was hosting interviews. “We never try to save each other. We just keep taking a position that we are scared of each other. Maybe we will kill off us on this earth. Very scary, all that I’m stuck thinking about.”
A lot is resting on Fayyad’s barely-30-year-old shoulders.
Not only has he been sneaking in and out of Syria for seven years to shoot docs like “Last Men in Aleppo”, which took Sundance’s World Doc Prize and an Oscar nomination in 2017, and concerns good Samaritans helping war victims in his home town, Fayyad is telling those stories as tragedies, not dispatches from the front, with all the artistry that requires.
Hence, he's become one of the most visible Syrians in the world, not an easy position after being imprisoned and tortured by the very repressive regime, replete with "electricity on my ears and my sexual parts" and removal of his fingernails.
“Because [‘Last Men in Aleppo’] captures the sickening results of Russian airstrikes, Russia is waging a disinformation campaign to discredit the film, its subjects and me,” Fayyad told The Guardian (2/28/2018).
A similar antagonism will surely apply after Putin’s trolls catch “The Cave” (95 min), which opened November 1st in a wide-art-film release from National Geographic (see their page for the film here).
“'When I was showing [‘Last Men’] at the Palm Springs Film Festival,’” Fayyad elaborated in The Guardian article, “'a woman accused me of spying for the FBI or CIA and faking news. Another time, I was in Dallas and a Russian man started talking to me. When he realized I was the director of the film, he became hostile and said ‘I can’t believe your story… anyone could have staged this.’”
Admittedly, the whole situation is unbelievable: from people for whom everything is faked to the fact that such a bloody civil war could rage in Syria for seven years with so little media coverage or humanitarian intervention.
Fayyad's 'The Cave' centers on pediatrician and hospital head Dr. Amani, a quiet but unstoppable force at the center of a war zone. photo: courtesy F. FayyadFayyad's new film "The Cave" would be hard to fake, given it covers a medical center in the basement of a bombed-out hospital in a neighborhood which, as far as the eye can see, is rubble.
Nevertheless, Fayyad doesn’t indulge narcissistic nihilism, as is the fad from radical Islamists to conspiracy theorists, or abject pessimism, which would be understandable for someone who has spent almost a quarter of their life watching their country self-destruct.
He simply takes every opportunity to ask, implore, demand, we step up and become more human. In fact, he retains his optimism. Hence his decision to go for art, to raise his reportage with aesthetics, to bet on civilization.
At the start of “The Cave” we are greeted by a long shot of a serene cityscape, with a castle on a mountain in the distance. Then the explosions start, far away, like fireworks, shooting dust plumes high in the air. Then the camera drops, plummeting down, down, down, past pockmarked walls of bombed-out buildings, into a dark basement—the eponymous cave—where a team of doctors, nurses and helpers, led by Dr. Amani Ballour, are frantically trying to patch back together the victims of those bombs.
Instead of anesthesia—of which there’s none—the head physician, Dr. Alaa, pulls out his phone and carefully selects a ballet performance from YouTube. “Listen to the music,” he repeats softly, as he stitches the young man bleeding on an improvised operating table. “Listen to the music.”
Beauty and death in a perpetual pas de deux: beauty and death, death and beauty.
After watching “The Cave” twice, once on computer (ridiculous), then on the big screen (a revelation), and talking to Fayyad (see interview below), I realized: Fayyad is fighting not only for the right of Syrians to live, but to live like artists, mystics and dreamers—specifically, to dream of peace in a deeply-disturbed land.
He’s also hoping that we might finally find the guts to tackle “the problem from hell,” as Samantha Powers, Obama’s Ambassador to the UN, and author of a book by the same name about genocide, called it.
The Middle East is cursed—or so many people assume. In point of fact, it is simply the site of our oldest civilizations. And those societies have had that much longer to decay, divide and develop the all-to-common feature of humans under pressure: a deep, abiding loathing of their opponents.
The preeminent place of Middle Eastern accursedness is currently Syria, given its domination by the Assads. From 1971 to 2000, the dictator was the father Hafez (an insult to the great Sufi poet of the same name) and now it is the son Bashar (a perfect onamonapia for his personality). Moreover, it is a Middle Eastern world war, with fighters from an endless array of opposing factions: Islamic State, al-Nusra Front, Syrian Liberation Front, Free Syrian Army, Russians, Shi’a Alawis, Iranian Shi’a, Sunnis and the Kurds.
Filmmaker Fayyad in front of a poster for 'The Cave' featuring Dr. Amani, at a screening in San Francisco. photo: D. BlairAs it happens, Fayyad’s mother is Kurdish and his non-religious father is a descendant of a Jewish family (although they converted to Islam in the 16th century, such roots are rarely forgotten). Hence, his family is a multi-ethnic mix, as was his crew, as are the people appearing in “The Cave”.
371,222 to 570,000 people of all ethnicities have been killed in the Syrian Civil War, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another seven and half million have been displaced, and over five million turned into refugees. That also cost thousands of lives, when their leaky rubber boats and sham life preservers failed in the middle of the Mediterranean, a tragedy Fayyad references in his film's last, also achingly beautiful, shot.
The politics are so complicated, Fayyad doesn’t even bother putting up a summary or statistic title card.
“This film is not about setting up the war, it is about telling the story of the women,” he explained at the screening I attended. “The people living in the cave—the cave is not just a hospital but a place for refugees.”
Fayyad's film fully captures that—the cooking, the sleeping in the halls, the kids crying, the doctors crying—as well as the relentless action.
Indeed, his crew shot like crazy (over 200 hours), sometimes while running backward in front of the gurneys, going down, down, down into the labyrinth beneath what was once a hospital. Sometimes Fayyad directed remotely, when he couldn’t get into Syria. One cinematographer, Ammar Sulaiman, lost his legs in an explosion—a horrific price to pay for a film but hopefully this one was worth it. .
“Dr. Amani’s parents were teachers," Fayyad explained about his protagonist at the screening. "They say from her childhood she didn’t want to be pushed around by any one. As a [film] subject she is very, very extraordinary. She criticizes the religion, she criticizes the society. She wonders why people would bring children [to life] in the middle of a war.”
“But she was open-minded,” he concluded, “and very easy to film, and very respected in the society. She is the only female doctor, the only woman, to head a hospital in the history of Syria.”
While Fayyad doesn't want his film to focus on politics, he expressed some to me in our interview—which was on October 8th, two days after Trump destroyed America's alliance with the Syrian Kurds, the most progressive and powerful fighters in the Middle East.
For one, he blames President Obama for not enforcing his gas attack redline (although Obama did get the Russians to supervise the disposal of tons of chemical weapon materiel). He also feels that members of multicultural, progressive societies deserve to have weapons to stand up to fascist dictators, and that war crime committers—of ALL sides—must face justice, preferably in The Hague.
Dr. Amani making her rounds through the long, reinforced halls, that radiate like mine shafts out from the hospital's basement. photo: courtesy F. FayyadNevertheless, the central theme resonating through "The Cave" is that Syria can be saved only by love, by healing, by kindness.
As it happens, Damascus is home to 200 different orders of Sufis, Islam’s alternative peace-and-poetry-professing faith. Indeed, the castle in the opening shot, which belongs to Assad, is not far from the mausoleum for Sufism’s greatest philosopher, Muhyidden ibn Arabi. In fact, Dr. Amani is a Sufi.
Although she appears to eschew religion, especially when aggressive fundamentalist men question her capacity to provide them medical services, her dedication to doctoring reflects a fairly standard Sufi selflessness. Trained as a pediatrician, her handling of injured and freaked-out children is a wonder.
Ironically, Syria's dynastic dictator, Bashar Assad, is also a doctor. Although trained in England as an optometrist, he's obviously unable to see what his bombing and gassing is doing to his own neighbors in Damascus' east side. Indeed, al-Ghouta, where the film’s hospital is located, was once a multi-ethnic neighborhood where no one ever asked: “What sect are you?”
Even though the Syrian Civil War is winding down to a disastrous defeat of civil society and Arab ecumenicalism, now with Trump turning tail, Turkey’s invasion and ISIS’ rebirth, it could start all over again.
We can only imagine the hope among the young, internet-informed demonstrators in 2011, after the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and crossed to Egypt. They naively thought they could inspire Dr. Assad to start the long-awaited reform of Syria, one of the most artistic, intellectual and multi-ethnic, as well as Sufi, societies in the Middle East.
But as the protestors increasingly insisted he step down, Assad reverted to his family’s traditional iron fist and fears for their minority sect, the Alawis. They started shooting unarmed civilians on March, 15, 2011.
Deciding that fire could only be fought with fire, the demonstrators took up arms. By 2012, however, radical Islamists were flooding in from Iraq. This explains the reluctance of the West to intervene: weapons shipments could be seized by Sunni Islamists and, if they took over, there was a good chance they would slaughter Syria’s Shi’a AND Sufi minorities—the problem from hell.
But some intervention was also essential, given Russia was sending in bombers and soldiers since September, 2015, and Iran and Hezbollah were supplying battalions of fighters. Obama led an international coalition to start airstrikes, special forces and artillery, mostly against the Islamic State but sometimes also Assad’s forces.
Meanwhile, all sides have been accused of human rights violations. Although a number of peace conferences been been attempted, staring in Geneva in 2017, they were fiascos.
No wonder Fayyad felt obliged to go back to Syria, even while getting his degree at the International School for Film and Television in Paris. Soon he was shooting what became the short, “Between the Fighter in Syria” (2016), and then the feature “Last Men in Aleppo (2017), while gathering footage for “The Cave” (2019).
“Now more than ever, it’s important for artists to stand together,” Fayyad noted in The Guardian piece, “to support one another, to fight for the truth.”
Considering Fayyad also had to secure funding, assisted by his hard-working Danish producers, Segrid Dyekjer and Kristine Barfod, and pro bono work from studios in England and San Francisco (Skywalker Ranch)—even as he was denied visas to those two nations (he wasn’t even allowed to attend the 2018 Oscars)—“The Cave” is a astounding achievement.
Naturally, I leapt at the opportunity to chat with him.
Fayyad engages his difficult subject. photo: D. BlaircineSOURCE: Are there any subjects you are reluctant to talk about, like religion?
Feras Fayyad: No, I am open to talk about everything.
I don’t know where to start, perhaps with the beauty of the film. You put in a lot of beauty shots, including at the very end, the submerged boat. Were there bodies in there?
No, there were no bodies, just life vests. They were using fake life vests, selling to refugees, and the refugees just drowned in the Mediterranean. This is happening on their way to Europe, and this is very shocking.
I am one of those refugees, who used the same way. I knew that under this water there was a plane and a ship from the First and Second World Wars, and there were a lot people of Syrians who were drown from [the new] war. It stuck in my mind all the way and when I manage to make this film, I try to go back to the place I [was in] when I was a refugee, and film it.
I want to make the people understand what it is like to be a refugee, moving in a boat on the top of the sea and, under you, there is a different war.
We never try to learn from this history. We never learn. We never try to save each other. We just keep taking a position that we are scared of each other. Maybe we will kill off us on this earth. Very scary, all that I’m stuck thinking about. Why are we doing [this] to each other?
What, as a human, should we do when there are a group of humans that need real help, that are running from a barbaric war—a barbaric war that used chemical attacks, bombs from Russia, bombs from the Syrian regime?
[There are] people who fight to stay in their home, [who] use everything they can to stay and survive. But they couldn’t, because it is more than any human can handle.
It is barbaric. There is nothing more barbaric then chemical attacks. There is one night in 2013, 1,500 were killed using the nerve gas by the Syrian regime. It is those people who need the real help.
Understand their drama. They are being controlled for 50 years from two people: Assad father and Assad son. Both of them, they use the most barbaric weapon and killed enough Syrians. They didn’t have any moral responsibility.
This is what I tried to [film] when I managed to come back and have papers to move around. As a refugee [in Europe], you have to stay for six months, sometimes more, to get your asylum accepted. I suffered. I was staying in a refugee camp for around six months. [Then] my asylum was accepted [and] I started to come back again, doing this story and shooting [the movie].
So you crossed from Turkey to Greece near that sunken boat?
Exactly. Yes, I was one of around a million refugees who crossed this Mediterranean to Europe. I did the same thing.
Did you get refugee status in Denmark?
With a little prompting, Fayyad can digress into an in-depth unburdening of his soul. photo: D. BlairI live in Denmark, but I get refugee status in Germany.
Did you go to film school or something?
Yes, I studied at film school in France [International Film and Television School, Paris].
Why did you feel to put so many beauty shots in there? The first shot is a beautiful shot. Then there is a fantastic shot of the tunnels that transforms into a woman’s eye. And, of course, in the middle of [an operation,] the doctors and patients watch a ballet.
I think because I study film and I am coming from a cinema background, real cinema that you put on the big screen. I came from this background, to tell stories through the cinema. The cinema for me is something about basic need. I use it in my life and this is the language that I [use to] communicate with the people.
I was a shy boy and I had a problem with the talking. Then I decided to be a cinema person. I decide this is another way I can get out of myself and express myself. Also, I was born in a dictatorship country where, if you speak out, that will cost you your life.
[Given] the situation that surrounded me in Syria, I want to use all the injustice, and try to put it in a clear picture, bring it to the eyes of the people. And use all what I can to bring it to the people, respecting for the audience, respecting for my career and for how I look at the cinema.
I grew up looking at the cinema, watching Bergman, watching for movies of Mizoguchi, of Ozu, of Kurasawa.
Right in Damascus, in theaters?
In Aleppo, on videotape.
And you had friends who were cine aficionados?
My father actually, my father was bringing tapes.
What did your father do?
My father was political researcher, he did research in Syria, writing journalism. He worked writing and analyzing the political situation.
It seemed me to the beauty was to help accentuate the tragedy.
Yes, the beauty in the film was to express the situation. For example, you see the candle [a closeup of a candle shaking in the wind to the sound of jet fighters]. We shoot it in 70mm camera. I try to recall my cinephile feeling [for] the role of cinema.
In Syria, I couldn’t use the big camera, because the freedom of expression is controlled by the authorities. When I managed to shoot with a good camera, I tried to show the contrast. When you have freedom of expression, you can use whatever you want to tell the story. When you don't have access then you have to use the small tools to tell the story as [best] you can.
Fayyad executes a Q&A at a press screening in San Francisco's Embarcadero Theater. photo: D. BlairSo it is like a contrast: How I can tell the people the meaning of freedom of expression. We have a privilege to tell the story. If you don’t have this privilege, then you [have to do] as you can.
Was the candle was shot in Denmark?
No, the candle was shot in England.
You had to sneak back into Syria to make the movie?
Yes, I have to sneak in. In England, I also couldn’t travel to shoot this shot. I couldn’t get a visa. There are a lot of things [like that] in this movie. I know my situation and I am trying to accept [it] and work through my situation as a refugee. [I] did’t have the privilege of movement as another filmmaker.
But I try to go around this situation. For example, when I shoot this [candle] footage, they send me the footage in Denmark, where I was staying and I send them my feed back and they shoot again. The same thing with the sound. We worked the sound here in San Francisco with Skywalker [Ranch, George Lucas’s studio], the same thing. I couldn’t travel to the US, because they wouldn't give the visa at the time. So they send me sound and I send them my feedback.
I can say making this movie is kind of work of artists without borders. Everyone knows how hard it is for me, and everyone wants to help. Everyone in the movie [brought] what they can and managed to face the border situation, and this is what I appreciate from the team.
For example, the American sound designer or the British company who helped me on the opening shot. They didn’t do the job as they wanted because of the immigration situation affected them.
I managed to make this movie within the circumstances. Maybe this movie won’t be done in the way I want, if I have the [freedom of] movement. Maybe I am telling [story] to face the sadness and the disappointment I faced. But maybe [without these difficulties], it is not the same involvement from the [film] people.
You snuck into Syria in 2017?
The footage is from 2013 [on]. I shoot after I have been jailed by the Syrian regime, for one year. I get out of the prison. I survived because torture system in Syria is very difficult, it is criminal.
You were tortured?
I was tortured. I was about to lose my life. They take my nails, under the torture; they use the electricity on my ears and my sexual parts, to get information. So when I get out, I filmed some footage. When I went out of Syria, I go back again and film some other footage, and I brought a cinematographer.
I love in my films to work with a team from Syria because of the Syrian regime—what he did to silence the whole [community] artists and journalists in Syria. I try to [show] the power and [get] the [great] job from them. He try to silence them.
The many children under Assad's hail of death did an admirable job holding up. photo: D. BlairBashar?
Bashar Ashad, yes. Then what I try to do in my movie is I try to involve everyone from Syria working with me. You can’t imagine that if you end without any job, that someone take from you your relation to your job. With this, I manage to involve a Syrian cinematographer and give him the space to work with me. Also other people, sound people.
How much there is control of the people. There is only one picture—of the dictator—and all the talented people [of Syria] are hidden behind this picture.
It is like an angry dictator who wants to be central to all the conversation and the people have to sneak, and there will be a conversation about it, and [the people] get angry and upset, and [the regime] try to kill them.
This is what the film bring, not just the story—a strong subject—but also the story [behind the film]. It managed to relieve these people [of being excluded from society]. And it managed to say, ‘If there is cooperation, if we are in solidarity, we can speak out and not allow the Syrian regime to silence us.’
You shot a lot of the film yourself?
Yes.
And when you came in the last time, you came with a crew of how many?
Three.
How did you find the main doctor?
Doctor Amani is one of the few doctors who stay behind in Syrian because of the size of the destruction and the bombing. I find her in 2013 [when] she was one of the few doctors saving life from the chemical attack in 2013. When there was 1500 people killed by the nerve gas in one night.
I managed to communicate with her and shoot this footage. It wasn’t the right time for telling the story, but I kept in communication with her. Later, I managed to know that she is the first woman in the history of Syria to lead a hospital.
This is surprising. It is very sad. In a way, it tells you how much inequality there is in the system. This is where we were surprising with them [with] a doctor like Amani.
The dictator Bashar Ashad is himself is a doctor and eye doctor. So just imagine a doctor killing the people. This is the contrast of our work, so that is like trying to tell the invisible stories. That is why you see in the opening shot: his castle in the distance, on the top of the mountain. And the bombs falling down where Dr Amani is staying underground.
So he is in his castle and she is underground. He is killing the people, she is saving the people. This is the power of the first shot to show where we are.
Displaying an unrelenting dedication to the arts, Fayyad shows the 17th century painting by Georges de La Tour which inspired his candle scene in 'The Cave'. photo: D. BlairThe candle shot recalls the idea of using the specific feeling of being survivor but also being sensitive, and to try to continue what you can do. In the same way, it also is to recall all the cinema and the art that used candles. There is George de La Tour, the painter, he used the candle to show you the naked picture of the crimes. He is a French painter and did a beautiful painting.
I try to recall the artistic level. You see the candle, the man here in picture and women showing him a picture a tough reality. [He shows the painting ‘Job Mocked by his Wife’, by Georges de La Tour, 1650, on his phone.]
Was Dr. Amani reluctant to be in the movie.
Actually we shoot in many areas a lot of footage. I wasn’t sure exactly if I keep shooting with Amani, and I wasn’t sure if Amani would survive, because of the bombs. I was shooting with a few doctors until I decide to move forward with certain footage. I feel like this is an extraordinary subject. It shows the balance with a lot of doctors I film.
Amani had one condition if you want to film… She wasn’t taking seriously the shooting because she known the media was not taking care of what was going on—not a lot of coverage of the Syrian situation. She wasn’t feeling this would make anything for her, [and] it wasn’t helping we were shooting a long time.
She was telling me, ‘Why do you need all this footage? What you think you are going to do?’ She didn’t think it was going to help.
During the shooting she told me, ‘Don't make your camera or crew to stop me from doing what I do. Be careful about this, and if some victims say you don’t film you have to stop.’ She wasn’t sure this story will be told.
She was skeptical?
Yes, she was going with the story, ‘OK, someone is filming, so what?’
I noticed only one woman with a burka—only one the whole movie.
Yes, this was like a small village on the side of the city.
Part of Damascus? Was everyone in movie all Sunni?
I think… I never ask them about their religion.
It’s pretty much a civil war between Sunni and Shi’a, no?
I don’t see this way, because there are a lot of Sunnis in the army of Assad and killing people.
But there is no one in the movie you know to be a Shia?
For example the writer of the movie, she is a Shi’a, she is Ismaili.
Ismaili? And how about Sufis?
Fayyad makes one of many salient points. photo: D. BlairAmani, I think is a Sufi. I think so. They didn’t talk about religion it much but she criticized the religion control around her. She criticized it so much in the [raw] footage. We picked the out the best. I find a balance.
I don't want to make a movie about just criticize the religion. I wanted to make a movie about trying to find a balance, to understand who this women is, understand how she can face this society, and also the size of the crime she has to go through. But I think Amani is a Sufi.
In Syria we never talk so much about religion, directly, like are ou Sunni, are you Alawis? Are you Shi’a, Ismaili?
The writer is a very good friend with Amani, very, very good and they know each other a long time, she is Ismaili, one of the cinematographer is Alawis [the Assad’s sect]. So it is like, not in this way. There is the big picture the Syrian regime tried to show it is a conflict of small group and big group, which is not true.
For me I am from Kurdish mother my father is Syrian Arabic but he was not a religious person.
He is agnostic or atheist?
He doesn’t take a position of fighting religious. He is a person of non-religious who says ‘OK, this religion it’s fine but I don’t believe in this religion to lead my life.’
Is his family Shi’a or Sunni?
The oldest root of my family is Jewish and they turned to Islam in the time of the Ottoman occupation (16th century). My grandfather and my father is non religion people my mom is Kurdish she coming from that region.
When you were growing up, I just a little curious about the Sufis because I read there were 200 Sufi groups in Damascus, ten twelve years.
Yeah, there are lot of Sufis in Syria, there are not just 200 people in Damascus.
There were 200 groups, tariqas.
Ah. Amani is from this group of people in Damascus, more than likely. Mostly the people of Damascus is Sufi. Damascus stand on the Sufism normally if you read the history of Damascus and the relationship of the Sufism and Damascus of how the society there.
The extreme religion or extreme Islam is coming when the father of Osama bin Laden start to put his finger inside Syriania so much. In the beginning of when Assad turned to be the head of the army, in that time. That time start a little bit the extreme religion was coming to Syrian it is growing up more with the control of the petrol. Syrian was under economic siege for a long time and they go to work in the petrols and they back with a different traditions.
Salafism?
Exactly, they come back with the Salafist, the Wahhabi mentality to the countries and they start the Salafist and Wahhabis to an economist level. So if you are rich, you are Salafist and you are Wahhabis. They have tradition plus a look for them. So they have a kind of personal life and they managed push it in an economic situations in Syrian and unfortunately they managed to have a lot of followers.
While our conversation was limited to 30 minutes, Fayyad had only begun to broach a number of topics of interest. photo: D. BlairUnfortunately we are coming to the end of my time and I have a lot of questions. Do you think Obama made a big mistake not enforcing the rule against the chemical warfare and not putting in more soldiers?
I think he did made a big mistake. What Obama did damage for Syria is very big, because he never responded what’s happening.
You think America should have actually started a third war in Middle East?
Yes, I think not a third war. I think Obama power at the time of that, if there is one response about the chemical attack of 2013, they would not will use again. Because after 2013 the Syrian regime feel they the ability to use the chemical attack again and he use it again and again he use 112 times around Syria, unfortunately.
If they have a response in the time and a serious response, not like a show off response and serious response about this it is going to be different.
Umm, I just read in al-Jazeera that the government and the opposition are going to sit down is this true? Is this hopeful?
As a Syrian, I wish it is helpful. I wish it is going to bring the Syrian war to the end. But I can’t tell you. I am person who normally I tries to think about helpful—hopeful situations but we are a little bit disappointed about the many negotiation that are happening through the history of the war in Syria and never one any of the is conversation bringing any peace for the Syria.
I try actually. I feel myself in kind of mission, in my movie. I want make people educated more to bring a kind of peace. I don’t want to make this movie to make people educate about the war in Syria. I want them to have a reaction and support the peaceful movement and peaceful communication in Syria. If this is movement is happening and serious one.
There is Geneva one, two and three, Sochi one, two, there are many of this negotiation. People in Syria are tired of this negotiation because it never come to be serious one to change situation on the ground.
What I wish I wish to be a serious one and but what I wish from them my movie is to bring a support from the public in the US, and from around the world to support and to bring a serious negotiation about stopping the war in Syria and start to think about we can build a Syria about we can put the war criminals under justice, coming for all the sides—not just about the Syrian regime—from all the side everyone who did the crime in Syria should go to the court to the justice
The Hague?
Yes. All of them in La Hague. From the all sides, this is very important. If we just say from the Syria regime side, there is no communication what is happening. The Syria regime is the main criminal in this war, with the Russians, but also there are other criminals around Syria who need to go to La Hague. Then the communication will happen in serious way for solving this war.
This a problem from hell. Would there be one two tricks or your sort of secret suggestion that would help solve this? Let’s say you were talking to some negotiators.
Hmmm.
And you were going to say. What do you think will solve this? Is it a political solution, a solution of more love?
[Sigh] You know all the civil war start with Syria the idea of the description of the civil war. Now are those its going to go and first rejection in the conversation. In the future, if there is a serious negotiation, it should come with accepting the people from all the different side. That means there is a people from Syria that will be rejected because the regime doesn’t like them. Or any other side because they don’t like them.
Including people who worked in regime, if they don’t have blood on their hands.
Of course, if they’re are not involved in crime, and not supporting crime, and not motivating people to crimes. This is very important because a lot of Syrian regime people were motivating people to crimes as well there is opposition, also [those] that motivate [through] the hate speech and the killing of the people, from the all sides.
Yes, there is a lot of good people but they didn’t have a voice, like Sabouni, who was like the minister of communication in Syria [Emad Abdul-Ghani Sabouni is the current Minister of Communications and Technology]. He sat in his house and was not allowed to communicate. [There] are a lot of good people.
I hear you saying what is needed is that strong multiculturalism—
Yes, of course.
And forgiveness?
What Fayyad would in fact look like, if you met him in the street, in a photo signed by the filmmaker. photo: courtesy F. FayyadYes, there is no Syria without forgiveness. There is no Syria without justice. Justice is just a step for forgiveness. If the criminal didn’t come to the court and say, ‘I did the crimes and I need to apologize to you,’ and if the victim didn't say, ‘I accept,’ there is no process.
But you need a people [who] are involved, who have a serious and honest way of putting the people into communication. Put the responsibility about the criminal who did crimes and he admits about his crimes. If he didn’t, there is not communication.
Do you think it is possible to move forward with out trails, with just truth and reconciliation commissions?
I think there is a way to move forward with out trail but the trail should be about the movement in the near future.
For example, for myself, I have been tortured and I am now suing the person who tortured me.
Your suing?
Yes, in Germany.
That is incredible. I think my time is up, and I think you have told me an incredible amount. What is your next project?
About lawyers who are trying to collect evidence about war crimes, trying to move the process in new Syria.
That is fantastic, man, I congratulate you for your good work. If my little magazine can be of any assistance—
It’s important. I believe in journalism work, that we fight so much in Syria for the freedom of information. The work is very important. Anyone who can be educated from this interview, who can understand how we are trying to change something for the peace in Syria and the movie is made for that.
I love the way you combine great filmmaking with—like that one drone shot, how did you get a drone up in such a terrible situation?
It is a long story. We have a drone shots of about one hour there is so much bombing
You only put in ten seconds. The beauty shots accentuate the tragedy, I think, it is a good decision people may criticize. They may want it to be hand held.
It is beautiful work for me. It means so much. I try hard to make the story we risk so much there, the crew risk their lives.
Where you ever almost killed?
Me two times, and my cinematographer [Ammar Sulaiman, a Damascus native] lost his legs.
Terrible. My solidarity goes out to you. I wish you luck.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .
Posted on Nov 07, 2019 - 09:58 PM
by Doniphan Blair
Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad and colleague grab a sunset shot of bombed-out Damascus. photo: courtesy F. FayyadFayyad in the street, you might take him for a hipster bartender or a rave DJ—given his extreme bangs, single earring and designer pants—until he opens his mouth. As the words pour out, tumbling one on top of the other, phrasing and rephrasing what he's desperately trying to articulate in Arabic-inflected syntax, you soon grock Fayyad is an intellectual, an artist—a filmmaker, no less—with a lot on his mind.
“We never try to learn from this history,” he told me, sitting in a windowless room at San Francisco’s deluxe Fairmont Hotel, where his publicist was hosting interviews. “We never try to save each other. We just keep taking a position that we are scared of each other. Maybe we will kill off us on this earth. Very scary, all that I’m stuck thinking about.”
A lot is resting on Fayyad’s barely-30-year-old shoulders.
Not only has he been sneaking in and out of Syria for seven years to shoot docs like “Last Men in Aleppo”, which took Sundance’s World Doc Prize and an Oscar nomination in 2017, and concerns good Samaritans helping war victims in his home town, Fayyad is telling those stories as tragedies, not dispatches from the front, with all the artistry that requires.
Hence, he's become one of the most visible Syrians in the world, not an easy position after being imprisoned and tortured by the very repressive regime, replete with "electricity on my ears and my sexual parts" and removal of his fingernails.
“Because [‘Last Men in Aleppo’] captures the sickening results of Russian airstrikes, Russia is waging a disinformation campaign to discredit the film, its subjects and me,” Fayyad told The Guardian (2/28/2018).
A similar antagonism will surely apply after Putin’s trolls catch “The Cave” (95 min), which opened November 1st in a wide-art-film release from National Geographic (see their page for the film here).
“'When I was showing [‘Last Men’] at the Palm Springs Film Festival,’” Fayyad elaborated in The Guardian article, “'a woman accused me of spying for the FBI or CIA and faking news. Another time, I was in Dallas and a Russian man started talking to me. When he realized I was the director of the film, he became hostile and said ‘I can’t believe your story… anyone could have staged this.’”
Admittedly, the whole situation is unbelievable: from people for whom everything is faked to the fact that such a bloody civil war could rage in Syria for seven years with so little media coverage or humanitarian intervention.
Fayyad's 'The Cave' centers on pediatrician and hospital head Dr. Amani, a quiet but unstoppable force at the center of a war zone. photo: courtesy F. FayyadNevertheless, Fayyad doesn’t indulge narcissistic nihilism, as is the fad from radical Islamists to conspiracy theorists, or abject pessimism, which would be understandable for someone who has spent almost a quarter of their life watching their country self-destruct.
He simply takes every opportunity to ask, implore, demand, we step up and become more human. In fact, he retains his optimism. Hence his decision to go for art, to raise his reportage with aesthetics, to bet on civilization.
At the start of “The Cave” we are greeted by a long shot of a serene cityscape, with a castle on a mountain in the distance. Then the explosions start, far away, like fireworks, shooting dust plumes high in the air. Then the camera drops, plummeting down, down, down, past pockmarked walls of bombed-out buildings, into a dark basement—the eponymous cave—where a team of doctors, nurses and helpers, led by Dr. Amani Ballour, are frantically trying to patch back together the victims of those bombs.
Instead of anesthesia—of which there’s none—the head physician, Dr. Alaa, pulls out his phone and carefully selects a ballet performance from YouTube. “Listen to the music,” he repeats softly, as he stitches the young man bleeding on an improvised operating table. “Listen to the music.”
Beauty and death in a perpetual pas de deux: beauty and death, death and beauty.
After watching “The Cave” twice, once on computer (ridiculous), then on the big screen (a revelation), and talking to Fayyad (see interview below), I realized: Fayyad is fighting not only for the right of Syrians to live, but to live like artists, mystics and dreamers—specifically, to dream of peace in a deeply-disturbed land.
He’s also hoping that we might finally find the guts to tackle “the problem from hell,” as Samantha Powers, Obama’s Ambassador to the UN, and author of a book by the same name about genocide, called it.
The Middle East is cursed—or so many people assume. In point of fact, it is simply the site of our oldest civilizations. And those societies have had that much longer to decay, divide and develop the all-to-common feature of humans under pressure: a deep, abiding loathing of their opponents.
The preeminent place of Middle Eastern accursedness is currently Syria, given its domination by the Assads. From 1971 to 2000, the dictator was the father Hafez (an insult to the great Sufi poet of the same name) and now it is the son Bashar (a perfect onamonapia for his personality). Moreover, it is a Middle Eastern world war, with fighters from an endless array of opposing factions: Islamic State, al-Nusra Front, Syrian Liberation Front, Free Syrian Army, Russians, Shi’a Alawis, Iranian Shi’a, Sunnis and the Kurds.
Filmmaker Fayyad in front of a poster for 'The Cave' featuring Dr. Amani, at a screening in San Francisco. photo: D. Blair371,222 to 570,000 people of all ethnicities have been killed in the Syrian Civil War, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another seven and half million have been displaced, and over five million turned into refugees. That also cost thousands of lives, when their leaky rubber boats and sham life preservers failed in the middle of the Mediterranean, a tragedy Fayyad references in his film's last, also achingly beautiful, shot.
The politics are so complicated, Fayyad doesn’t even bother putting up a summary or statistic title card.
“This film is not about setting up the war, it is about telling the story of the women,” he explained at the screening I attended. “The people living in the cave—the cave is not just a hospital but a place for refugees.”
Fayyad's film fully captures that—the cooking, the sleeping in the halls, the kids crying, the doctors crying—as well as the relentless action.
Indeed, his crew shot like crazy (over 200 hours), sometimes while running backward in front of the gurneys, going down, down, down into the labyrinth beneath what was once a hospital. Sometimes Fayyad directed remotely, when he couldn’t get into Syria. One cinematographer, Ammar Sulaiman, lost his legs in an explosion—a horrific price to pay for a film but hopefully this one was worth it. .
“Dr. Amani’s parents were teachers," Fayyad explained about his protagonist at the screening. "They say from her childhood she didn’t want to be pushed around by any one. As a [film] subject she is very, very extraordinary. She criticizes the religion, she criticizes the society. She wonders why people would bring children [to life] in the middle of a war.”
“But she was open-minded,” he concluded, “and very easy to film, and very respected in the society. She is the only female doctor, the only woman, to head a hospital in the history of Syria.”
While Fayyad doesn't want his film to focus on politics, he expressed some to me in our interview—which was on October 8th, two days after Trump destroyed America's alliance with the Syrian Kurds, the most progressive and powerful fighters in the Middle East.
For one, he blames President Obama for not enforcing his gas attack redline (although Obama did get the Russians to supervise the disposal of tons of chemical weapon materiel). He also feels that members of multicultural, progressive societies deserve to have weapons to stand up to fascist dictators, and that war crime committers—of ALL sides—must face justice, preferably in The Hague.
Dr. Amani making her rounds through the long, reinforced halls, that radiate like mine shafts out from the hospital's basement. photo: courtesy F. FayyadAs it happens, Damascus is home to 200 different orders of Sufis, Islam’s alternative peace-and-poetry-professing faith. Indeed, the castle in the opening shot, which belongs to Assad, is not far from the mausoleum for Sufism’s greatest philosopher, Muhyidden ibn Arabi. In fact, Dr. Amani is a Sufi.
Although she appears to eschew religion, especially when aggressive fundamentalist men question her capacity to provide them medical services, her dedication to doctoring reflects a fairly standard Sufi selflessness. Trained as a pediatrician, her handling of injured and freaked-out children is a wonder.
Ironically, Syria's dynastic dictator, Bashar Assad, is also a doctor. Although trained in England as an optometrist, he's obviously unable to see what his bombing and gassing is doing to his own neighbors in Damascus' east side. Indeed, al-Ghouta, where the film’s hospital is located, was once a multi-ethnic neighborhood where no one ever asked: “What sect are you?”
Even though the Syrian Civil War is winding down to a disastrous defeat of civil society and Arab ecumenicalism, now with Trump turning tail, Turkey’s invasion and ISIS’ rebirth, it could start all over again.
We can only imagine the hope among the young, internet-informed demonstrators in 2011, after the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and crossed to Egypt. They naively thought they could inspire Dr. Assad to start the long-awaited reform of Syria, one of the most artistic, intellectual and multi-ethnic, as well as Sufi, societies in the Middle East.
But as the protestors increasingly insisted he step down, Assad reverted to his family’s traditional iron fist and fears for their minority sect, the Alawis. They started shooting unarmed civilians on March, 15, 2011.
Deciding that fire could only be fought with fire, the demonstrators took up arms. By 2012, however, radical Islamists were flooding in from Iraq. This explains the reluctance of the West to intervene: weapons shipments could be seized by Sunni Islamists and, if they took over, there was a good chance they would slaughter Syria’s Shi’a AND Sufi minorities—the problem from hell.
But some intervention was also essential, given Russia was sending in bombers and soldiers since September, 2015, and Iran and Hezbollah were supplying battalions of fighters. Obama led an international coalition to start airstrikes, special forces and artillery, mostly against the Islamic State but sometimes also Assad’s forces.
Meanwhile, all sides have been accused of human rights violations. Although a number of peace conferences been been attempted, staring in Geneva in 2017, they were fiascos.
No wonder Fayyad felt obliged to go back to Syria, even while getting his degree at the International School for Film and Television in Paris. Soon he was shooting what became the short, “Between the Fighter in Syria” (2016), and then the feature “Last Men in Aleppo (2017), while gathering footage for “The Cave” (2019).
“Now more than ever, it’s important for artists to stand together,” Fayyad noted in The Guardian piece, “to support one another, to fight for the truth.”
Considering Fayyad also had to secure funding, assisted by his hard-working Danish producers, Segrid Dyekjer and Kristine Barfod, and pro bono work from studios in England and San Francisco (Skywalker Ranch)—even as he was denied visas to those two nations (he wasn’t even allowed to attend the 2018 Oscars)—“The Cave” is a astounding achievement.
Naturally, I leapt at the opportunity to chat with him.
Fayyad engages his difficult subject. photo: D. BlairFeras Fayyad: No, I am open to talk about everything.
I don’t know where to start, perhaps with the beauty of the film. You put in a lot of beauty shots, including at the very end, the submerged boat. Were there bodies in there?
No, there were no bodies, just life vests. They were using fake life vests, selling to refugees, and the refugees just drowned in the Mediterranean. This is happening on their way to Europe, and this is very shocking.
I am one of those refugees, who used the same way. I knew that under this water there was a plane and a ship from the First and Second World Wars, and there were a lot people of Syrians who were drown from [the new] war. It stuck in my mind all the way and when I manage to make this film, I try to go back to the place I [was in] when I was a refugee, and film it.
I want to make the people understand what it is like to be a refugee, moving in a boat on the top of the sea and, under you, there is a different war.
We never try to learn from this history. We never learn. We never try to save each other. We just keep taking a position that we are scared of each other. Maybe we will kill off us on this earth. Very scary, all that I’m stuck thinking about. Why are we doing [this] to each other?
What, as a human, should we do when there are a group of humans that need real help, that are running from a barbaric war—a barbaric war that used chemical attacks, bombs from Russia, bombs from the Syrian regime?
[There are] people who fight to stay in their home, [who] use everything they can to stay and survive. But they couldn’t, because it is more than any human can handle.
It is barbaric. There is nothing more barbaric then chemical attacks. There is one night in 2013, 1,500 were killed using the nerve gas by the Syrian regime. It is those people who need the real help.
Understand their drama. They are being controlled for 50 years from two people: Assad father and Assad son. Both of them, they use the most barbaric weapon and killed enough Syrians. They didn’t have any moral responsibility.
This is what I tried to [film] when I managed to come back and have papers to move around. As a refugee [in Europe], you have to stay for six months, sometimes more, to get your asylum accepted. I suffered. I was staying in a refugee camp for around six months. [Then] my asylum was accepted [and] I started to come back again, doing this story and shooting [the movie].
So you crossed from Turkey to Greece near that sunken boat?
Exactly. Yes, I was one of around a million refugees who crossed this Mediterranean to Europe. I did the same thing.
Did you get refugee status in Denmark?
With a little prompting, Fayyad can digress into an in-depth unburdening of his soul. photo: D. BlairDid you go to film school or something?
Yes, I studied at film school in France [International Film and Television School, Paris].
Why did you feel to put so many beauty shots in there? The first shot is a beautiful shot. Then there is a fantastic shot of the tunnels that transforms into a woman’s eye. And, of course, in the middle of [an operation,] the doctors and patients watch a ballet.
I think because I study film and I am coming from a cinema background, real cinema that you put on the big screen. I came from this background, to tell stories through the cinema. The cinema for me is something about basic need. I use it in my life and this is the language that I [use to] communicate with the people.
I was a shy boy and I had a problem with the talking. Then I decided to be a cinema person. I decide this is another way I can get out of myself and express myself. Also, I was born in a dictatorship country where, if you speak out, that will cost you your life.
[Given] the situation that surrounded me in Syria, I want to use all the injustice, and try to put it in a clear picture, bring it to the eyes of the people. And use all what I can to bring it to the people, respecting for the audience, respecting for my career and for how I look at the cinema.
I grew up looking at the cinema, watching Bergman, watching for movies of Mizoguchi, of Ozu, of Kurasawa.
Right in Damascus, in theaters?
In Aleppo, on videotape.
And you had friends who were cine aficionados?
My father actually, my father was bringing tapes.
What did your father do?
My father was political researcher, he did research in Syria, writing journalism. He worked writing and analyzing the political situation.
It seemed me to the beauty was to help accentuate the tragedy.
Yes, the beauty in the film was to express the situation. For example, you see the candle [a closeup of a candle shaking in the wind to the sound of jet fighters]. We shoot it in 70mm camera. I try to recall my cinephile feeling [for] the role of cinema.
In Syria, I couldn’t use the big camera, because the freedom of expression is controlled by the authorities. When I managed to shoot with a good camera, I tried to show the contrast. When you have freedom of expression, you can use whatever you want to tell the story. When you don't have access then you have to use the small tools to tell the story as [best] you can.
Fayyad executes a Q&A at a press screening in San Francisco's Embarcadero Theater. photo: D. BlairWas the candle was shot in Denmark?
No, the candle was shot in England.
You had to sneak back into Syria to make the movie?
Yes, I have to sneak in. In England, I also couldn’t travel to shoot this shot. I couldn’t get a visa. There are a lot of things [like that] in this movie. I know my situation and I am trying to accept [it] and work through my situation as a refugee. [I] did’t have the privilege of movement as another filmmaker.
But I try to go around this situation. For example, when I shoot this [candle] footage, they send me the footage in Denmark, where I was staying and I send them my feed back and they shoot again. The same thing with the sound. We worked the sound here in San Francisco with Skywalker [Ranch, George Lucas’s studio], the same thing. I couldn’t travel to the US, because they wouldn't give the visa at the time. So they send me sound and I send them my feedback.
I can say making this movie is kind of work of artists without borders. Everyone knows how hard it is for me, and everyone wants to help. Everyone in the movie [brought] what they can and managed to face the border situation, and this is what I appreciate from the team.
For example, the American sound designer or the British company who helped me on the opening shot. They didn’t do the job as they wanted because of the immigration situation affected them.
I managed to make this movie within the circumstances. Maybe this movie won’t be done in the way I want, if I have the [freedom of] movement. Maybe I am telling [story] to face the sadness and the disappointment I faced. But maybe [without these difficulties], it is not the same involvement from the [film] people.
You snuck into Syria in 2017?
The footage is from 2013 [on]. I shoot after I have been jailed by the Syrian regime, for one year. I get out of the prison. I survived because torture system in Syria is very difficult, it is criminal.
You were tortured?
I was tortured. I was about to lose my life. They take my nails, under the torture; they use the electricity on my ears and my sexual parts, to get information. So when I get out, I filmed some footage. When I went out of Syria, I go back again and film some other footage, and I brought a cinematographer.
I love in my films to work with a team from Syria because of the Syrian regime—what he did to silence the whole [community] artists and journalists in Syria. I try to [show] the power and [get] the [great] job from them. He try to silence them.
The many children under Assad's hail of death did an admirable job holding up. photo: D. BlairBashar Ashad, yes. Then what I try to do in my movie is I try to involve everyone from Syria working with me. You can’t imagine that if you end without any job, that someone take from you your relation to your job. With this, I manage to involve a Syrian cinematographer and give him the space to work with me. Also other people, sound people.
How much there is control of the people. There is only one picture—of the dictator—and all the talented people [of Syria] are hidden behind this picture.
It is like an angry dictator who wants to be central to all the conversation and the people have to sneak, and there will be a conversation about it, and [the people] get angry and upset, and [the regime] try to kill them.
This is what the film bring, not just the story—a strong subject—but also the story [behind the film]. It managed to relieve these people [of being excluded from society]. And it managed to say, ‘If there is cooperation, if we are in solidarity, we can speak out and not allow the Syrian regime to silence us.’
You shot a lot of the film yourself?
Yes.
And when you came in the last time, you came with a crew of how many?
Three.
How did you find the main doctor?
Doctor Amani is one of the few doctors who stay behind in Syrian because of the size of the destruction and the bombing. I find her in 2013 [when] she was one of the few doctors saving life from the chemical attack in 2013. When there was 1500 people killed by the nerve gas in one night.
I managed to communicate with her and shoot this footage. It wasn’t the right time for telling the story, but I kept in communication with her. Later, I managed to know that she is the first woman in the history of Syria to lead a hospital.
This is surprising. It is very sad. In a way, it tells you how much inequality there is in the system. This is where we were surprising with them [with] a doctor like Amani.
The dictator Bashar Ashad is himself is a doctor and eye doctor. So just imagine a doctor killing the people. This is the contrast of our work, so that is like trying to tell the invisible stories. That is why you see in the opening shot: his castle in the distance, on the top of the mountain. And the bombs falling down where Dr Amani is staying underground.
So he is in his castle and she is underground. He is killing the people, she is saving the people. This is the power of the first shot to show where we are.
Displaying an unrelenting dedication to the arts, Fayyad shows the 17th century painting by Georges de La Tour which inspired his candle scene in 'The Cave'. photo: D. BlairI try to recall the artistic level. You see the candle, the man here in picture and women showing him a picture a tough reality. [He shows the painting ‘Job Mocked by his Wife’, by Georges de La Tour, 1650, on his phone.]
Was Dr. Amani reluctant to be in the movie.
Actually we shoot in many areas a lot of footage. I wasn’t sure exactly if I keep shooting with Amani, and I wasn’t sure if Amani would survive, because of the bombs. I was shooting with a few doctors until I decide to move forward with certain footage. I feel like this is an extraordinary subject. It shows the balance with a lot of doctors I film.
Amani had one condition if you want to film… She wasn’t taking seriously the shooting because she known the media was not taking care of what was going on—not a lot of coverage of the Syrian situation. She wasn’t feeling this would make anything for her, [and] it wasn’t helping we were shooting a long time.
She was telling me, ‘Why do you need all this footage? What you think you are going to do?’ She didn’t think it was going to help.
During the shooting she told me, ‘Don't make your camera or crew to stop me from doing what I do. Be careful about this, and if some victims say you don’t film you have to stop.’ She wasn’t sure this story will be told.
She was skeptical?
Yes, she was going with the story, ‘OK, someone is filming, so what?’
I noticed only one woman with a burka—only one the whole movie.
Yes, this was like a small village on the side of the city.
Part of Damascus? Was everyone in movie all Sunni?
I think… I never ask them about their religion.
It’s pretty much a civil war between Sunni and Shi’a, no?
I don’t see this way, because there are a lot of Sunnis in the army of Assad and killing people.
But there is no one in the movie you know to be a Shia?
For example the writer of the movie, she is a Shi’a, she is Ismaili.
Ismaili? And how about Sufis?
Fayyad makes one of many salient points. photo: D. BlairI don't want to make a movie about just criticize the religion. I wanted to make a movie about trying to find a balance, to understand who this women is, understand how she can face this society, and also the size of the crime she has to go through. But I think Amani is a Sufi.
In Syria we never talk so much about religion, directly, like are ou Sunni, are you Alawis? Are you Shi’a, Ismaili?
The writer is a very good friend with Amani, very, very good and they know each other a long time, she is Ismaili, one of the cinematographer is Alawis [the Assad’s sect]. So it is like, not in this way. There is the big picture the Syrian regime tried to show it is a conflict of small group and big group, which is not true.
For me I am from Kurdish mother my father is Syrian Arabic but he was not a religious person.
He is agnostic or atheist?
He doesn’t take a position of fighting religious. He is a person of non-religious who says ‘OK, this religion it’s fine but I don’t believe in this religion to lead my life.’
Is his family Shi’a or Sunni?
The oldest root of my family is Jewish and they turned to Islam in the time of the Ottoman occupation (16th century). My grandfather and my father is non religion people my mom is Kurdish she coming from that region.
When you were growing up, I just a little curious about the Sufis because I read there were 200 Sufi groups in Damascus, ten twelve years.
Yeah, there are lot of Sufis in Syria, there are not just 200 people in Damascus.
There were 200 groups, tariqas.
Ah. Amani is from this group of people in Damascus, more than likely. Mostly the people of Damascus is Sufi. Damascus stand on the Sufism normally if you read the history of Damascus and the relationship of the Sufism and Damascus of how the society there.
The extreme religion or extreme Islam is coming when the father of Osama bin Laden start to put his finger inside Syriania so much. In the beginning of when Assad turned to be the head of the army, in that time. That time start a little bit the extreme religion was coming to Syrian it is growing up more with the control of the petrol. Syrian was under economic siege for a long time and they go to work in the petrols and they back with a different traditions.
Salafism?
Exactly, they come back with the Salafist, the Wahhabi mentality to the countries and they start the Salafist and Wahhabis to an economist level. So if you are rich, you are Salafist and you are Wahhabis. They have tradition plus a look for them. So they have a kind of personal life and they managed push it in an economic situations in Syrian and unfortunately they managed to have a lot of followers.
While our conversation was limited to 30 minutes, Fayyad had only begun to broach a number of topics of interest. photo: D. BlairI think he did made a big mistake. What Obama did damage for Syria is very big, because he never responded what’s happening.
You think America should have actually started a third war in Middle East?
Yes, I think not a third war. I think Obama power at the time of that, if there is one response about the chemical attack of 2013, they would not will use again. Because after 2013 the Syrian regime feel they the ability to use the chemical attack again and he use it again and again he use 112 times around Syria, unfortunately.
If they have a response in the time and a serious response, not like a show off response and serious response about this it is going to be different.
Umm, I just read in al-Jazeera that the government and the opposition are going to sit down is this true? Is this hopeful?
As a Syrian, I wish it is helpful. I wish it is going to bring the Syrian war to the end. But I can’t tell you. I am person who normally I tries to think about helpful—hopeful situations but we are a little bit disappointed about the many negotiation that are happening through the history of the war in Syria and never one any of the is conversation bringing any peace for the Syria.
I try actually. I feel myself in kind of mission, in my movie. I want make people educated more to bring a kind of peace. I don’t want to make this movie to make people educate about the war in Syria. I want them to have a reaction and support the peaceful movement and peaceful communication in Syria. If this is movement is happening and serious one.
There is Geneva one, two and three, Sochi one, two, there are many of this negotiation. People in Syria are tired of this negotiation because it never come to be serious one to change situation on the ground.
What I wish I wish to be a serious one and but what I wish from them my movie is to bring a support from the public in the US, and from around the world to support and to bring a serious negotiation about stopping the war in Syria and start to think about we can build a Syria about we can put the war criminals under justice, coming for all the sides—not just about the Syrian regime—from all the side everyone who did the crime in Syria should go to the court to the justice
The Hague?
Yes. All of them in La Hague. From the all sides, this is very important. If we just say from the Syria regime side, there is no communication what is happening. The Syria regime is the main criminal in this war, with the Russians, but also there are other criminals around Syria who need to go to La Hague. Then the communication will happen in serious way for solving this war.
This a problem from hell. Would there be one two tricks or your sort of secret suggestion that would help solve this? Let’s say you were talking to some negotiators.
Hmmm.
And you were going to say. What do you think will solve this? Is it a political solution, a solution of more love?
[Sigh] You know all the civil war start with Syria the idea of the description of the civil war. Now are those its going to go and first rejection in the conversation. In the future, if there is a serious negotiation, it should come with accepting the people from all the different side. That means there is a people from Syria that will be rejected because the regime doesn’t like them. Or any other side because they don’t like them.
Including people who worked in regime, if they don’t have blood on their hands.
Of course, if they’re are not involved in crime, and not supporting crime, and not motivating people to crimes. This is very important because a lot of Syrian regime people were motivating people to crimes as well there is opposition, also [those] that motivate [through] the hate speech and the killing of the people, from the all sides.
Yes, there is a lot of good people but they didn’t have a voice, like Sabouni, who was like the minister of communication in Syria [Emad Abdul-Ghani Sabouni is the current Minister of Communications and Technology]. He sat in his house and was not allowed to communicate. [There] are a lot of good people.
I hear you saying what is needed is that strong multiculturalism—
Yes, of course.
And forgiveness?
What Fayyad would in fact look like, if you met him in the street, in a photo signed by the filmmaker. photo: courtesy F. FayyadBut you need a people [who] are involved, who have a serious and honest way of putting the people into communication. Put the responsibility about the criminal who did crimes and he admits about his crimes. If he didn’t, there is not communication.
Do you think it is possible to move forward with out trails, with just truth and reconciliation commissions?
I think there is a way to move forward with out trail but the trail should be about the movement in the near future.
For example, for myself, I have been tortured and I am now suing the person who tortured me.
Your suing?
Yes, in Germany.
That is incredible. I think my time is up, and I think you have told me an incredible amount. What is your next project?
About lawyers who are trying to collect evidence about war crimes, trying to move the process in new Syria.
That is fantastic, man, I congratulate you for your good work. If my little magazine can be of any assistance—
It’s important. I believe in journalism work, that we fight so much in Syria for the freedom of information. The work is very important. Anyone who can be educated from this interview, who can understand how we are trying to change something for the peace in Syria and the movie is made for that.
I love the way you combine great filmmaking with—like that one drone shot, how did you get a drone up in such a terrible situation?
It is a long story. We have a drone shots of about one hour there is so much bombing
You only put in ten seconds. The beauty shots accentuate the tragedy, I think, it is a good decision people may criticize. They may want it to be hand held.
It is beautiful work for me. It means so much. I try hard to make the story we risk so much there, the crew risk their lives.
Where you ever almost killed?
Me two times, and my cinematographer [Ammar Sulaiman, a Damascus native] lost his legs.
Terrible. My solidarity goes out to you. I wish you luck.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .
Posted on Nov 07, 2019 - 09:58 PM
