Film on Syrian unrest debuts at Toronto

TORONTO, Canada – Filmmaker Mohamad Malas unveiled at the Toronto International Film Festival a movie shot in his Syrian homeland, as conflict raged all around him.

Malas said in an interview with AFP that he wrote and got government approval to film his “Ladder to Damascus” (“Soullam ila Dimashq”) prior to the eruption of violence that has gripped Syria since 2011.

After the start of the insurgency, the Syrian writer-filmmaker adapted his script to reflect unrest that has claimed more than 100,000 lives.

The film started as a love story about a young woman who moves to Damascus and meets an aspiring film director.

It opens what one festival organizer called “a captivating window into the psyche of ordinary Syrians grappling with a historic upheaval.”

In the film, 12 young Syrians pursuing jobs and studies are brought together as boarders at the same century-old home in the Syrian capital, even as violence fills the streets of Damascus.

Malas’ script is populated with Syrians of various religions and backgrounds, each describing personal experiences as the fighting closes in on them.

‘Personal protest’

The film also aims, through allegory, to confront the role of cinema in times of turmoil, Malas said.

“It was impossible to ignore the goings-on around us,” the filmmaker said through an interpreter.

“I didn’t want to wait for the revolution to end to talk about it.”

He called the movie “his own personal form of protest” for democracy and freedom of expression, adding that, at 68, he is too old to march and wave placards in the streets.

Malas encouraged his actors to improvise dialogue throughout the film and to speak in their own words about what was happening in Syria.

“I had them tell their own stories,” he said, adding that it is “difficult to call the film fiction.”

At the same time, he decried labels such as “docudrama,” saying the film did not fictionalize actual events but instead offered a commentary on the way war disrupts daily life.

Guerrilla filmmaking

Filming under a shroud of secrecy and danger to his crew in Damascus was “very difficult and complicated,” Malas said, adding that he was never sure if his crew and cast would show up for filming.

At the end of each day, Malas said he worried about whether his cast and crew would get safely home.

The film, which premiered on September 8, is the only Syrian production at the annual festival held in September.

“I don’t think I will be able to show the film in Syria until after the end of the conflict,” Malas said.

Syrian cinema has been in a downward spiral for decades, he lamented, noting that there were once 130 cinemas in Syria.

There are now fewer than 20, according to the director, and most of these theaters have projectors in poor repair.

Speaking about the conflict that has shattered his country, Malas said he believes that what started as a fight between Islamists and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has become a proxy war and “an international conflict” between world and regional powers.

The director said he opposes international intervention in Syria, including a possible US strike.

After the Toronto film festival, which runs through to September 15, Malas said in English that he hoped to return to Syria “to be with my people, with my family in this tragic moment.” – Rappler.com

Here’s the trailer of ‘Ladder to Damascus’: