In post-2011 Syria, there are no such platforms that will screen our films, despite them having reached the most prominent festivals and won prestigious awards. They are not films that exist within the category of cultural recognition and artistic creativity in Syria. For these platforms—if they exist—our films are entirely rejected political positions. In Syria, and the few platforms that currently exist within it, there is only room for fiction films, short or feature length, produced by the National Film Organisation or what little the censorship leaves available to the public.
So it’s a war. That could be our overall answer to there being nothing we can call a “Syrian audience,” especially when a judgment is passed as an absolute conclusion, that the Syrian audience loved this film or condemned that film.
What about Syrian audiences living in exile?
Yes, there’s a Syrian audience that’s passionate about this cinema all over the planet, and it is largely concentrated in Europe. There are two, at least culturally, vital cities—Berlin and Paris—where more platforms and opportunities for Syrian affairs exist; perhaps because of the concentration of Syrian institutions or because of the intensity of cultural and artistic activities in general.
Yes, there are film festivals in almost every city or even town across Europe, to which waves of Syrians have fled to escape death. But does this mean that Syrian documentaries actually reach this audience?
In my opinion, no—the majority of Syrians currently living in these cities have not yet considered the local or international film club or festival their platform, while attendance rates tend to still be very sporadic. We can’t say that a few dozen Syrians attending a Syrian film here is evidence of the presence of a Syrian audience denouncing, promoting and engaging with these films.
This inevitably reflects back on the film product in it’s critical and appreciation prospects. The absence of a screening platform means that the audience is deprived of discussing with the filmmakers the film’s content or artistic choices, and them expressing their opinions. It is our right to see Syria through the eyes of our Syrian peers and to open up the dramatic treatment to criticism and research.
It also reflects on the development of the themes of these films and their dramatic treatment styles. Several years after Syria’s first documentary successes, our discussions as filmmakers have now turned to a purely western local audience, whose interests are often focused on a political understanding of the Syrian issue, of Syria as a “strategic” country, of Syrians as a human group.
This is a huge responsibility weighing on the directors, because every word in screening discussions leaves strong impressions and may be considered by part of the audience as a given fact. So how do we create the dramatic narrative out of our own tragedy to then share it with an audience that is perhaps furthest from that tragedy? Such questions have full legitimacy, and Syrians have the right to pose them to filmmakers.
In an attempt to understand the gap between the Syrian public and Syrian cinema—and here I mean documentaries exclusively, because they are my profession—it’s important to explain some of the axioms of this industry.
The viewer as character
Professionalism requires the existence of financial returns, like any other profession, and so one of the basics is being able to sell. You’ll probably need to be able to sell a movie in order to make it. The terms of sale may start at the beginning of the film’s creation, not after it has been made. Very few films make multiple high screening-frequency sales after they are made. These opportunities depend on many factors, not only the subject of the film itself, but also the makers of the film, the director or the producer and their experience, and the type of partnerships the film creates from its offset—partnerships with funding institutions, for example.
Print
Guevara Namer | Radio Free (2020-02-11T12:03:35+00:00) The diasporic alienation of Syrian cinema. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/02/11/the-diasporic-alienation-of-syrian-cinema/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.