17 March 2009
DAMASCUS: As curator Rasha Salti pointed out in her 2006 edited volume "Insights into Syrian Cinema," the filmmakers of that country have created one of the most allusive and interesting auteur cinemas in the Arab Middle East. More recently, Syrians have made their mark on the region's audio-visual landscape via musalsalat, television serials.
The contribution of the country's filmmakers to the documentary genre, particularly the more aesthetically refined form termed "creative documentary," is more equivocal. Their contribution to the form is, in one respect, highly distinguished.
With his films "A Flood in Baath Country" (2005), which examines one Syrian village's experience of development, and "The Man with the Golden Soles" (2000), an intimate examination of the career of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri while he was out of office, Omar Amiralay is renowned as a world-class documentarian.
Syrian feature filmmakers too have generated some fine documentaries. Witness Mohammad Malas' "The Dream." Completed in 1981, this prescient film is comprised of interviews with Palestinians living in refugee camps around Lebanon - including Sabra-Shatilla, which since 1982 has become an emblem of infamy for the horrendous massacre perpetrated against its residents - during which he simply asked them to recount their dreams.
On the other hand, there is a paucity of new documentary film emerging from this country. For Orwa Nyrabia and Diana Jeriroudi, changing this state of affairs has become a mission. Since 2002, their company Pro Action Film has been Syria's only production house devoted exclusively to independent creative documentary.
This year, for the second year running, the duo has headed up the small team organizing Dox Box, "Days of Real Cinema," Syria's documentary film festival. The event commenced in Damascus on March 4, opening with "China is Still Far," the latest work by Algeria's Malek Bensmal.
Dox Box 2009 screened an impressive program of fine international documentaries, old and new, in two cinemas and ran a series of workshops that brought Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian filmmakers together with an array of international industry professionals. Several films then went on the road to Homs and Tartous, where the festival wrapped up on Sunday. No small number of screening sold out.
"It took two years of planning to finalize what Dox Box would be," says Jeriroudi. "It had to be decentralized from Damascus. Of course you can't really escape because all cultural events and all filmmakers reside in Damascus but we knew we had to decentralize this event and to bring it as an event in a box that can travel. Ideally, we'd like to add a new city every year but that proved to be too idealistic for the resources that we can attract."
"Any film event exists in the desert because cinema isn't part of the daily life of the people," says Nyrabia. "So it wasn't such a huge challenge to attract an audience because the audience is hungry. Other cultural events [have] ... their official speeches and parties and suits and ties and ... stars and red carpets and photographers and so on. By creating a more modest character for this festival, I think we attracted more young people. I think the formula is working in that sense."
The question of why there is such a dearth of documentary film production in a country with such fine filmmakers is a complex one.
"If you look at Syria," Jeriroudi says, "You can see many such gaps ... But culture is the obvious place to see them. Usually if there are many problems - financial, economic and maybe even political and social - you can see documentary is the first to be excluded ... Syria is not a regular producer of feature film so the problem is with cinema, not one with documentary or fiction.
"Television has thrived as a result of private initiatives and once it was recognized as a commercial asset it was also supported. We're speaking relatively of course, because Syria doesn't really have a very structured film and TV industry. But I think TV made it possible now for film to flourish a little. The documentary film industry can follow.
"The main problem in Syria is the lack of film schools, because we don't have any feed into the market or the art scene for the talent, that is well-educated or at least tacking their own style and vision of how to work in cinema."
Other parts of the Arab world share an ambivalent attitude towards documentary. Until quite recently in Morocco, for instance, documentary filmmakers were not considered filmmakers at all and thus were denied access to that country's national film fund. This ambiguity seems to be echoed in Syria. Before signing the agreement with the relevant state agencies to make use of the Qabbani and Kindi cinemas, for instance, organizers were told that post-screening discussions between audience members and filmmakers would not be allowed.
"The National Film Organization, the Ministry of Culture's cinema arm, doesn't really acknowledge creative documentary as part of it annual production," Nyrabia says. "It doesn't exist in their calculations. We start from the next page ... We have zero local financing for out films. We're trying to find alternatives.
"There is a political problem with documentary. It is politically and socially engaged. So yes, it's definitely not the favorite genre of perhaps any authority. But we're working. We are managing to show all these films - and many of the films in Dox Box's program are very critical, of many things in the world. As long as we can do that, there is some kind of an opening that we can work within and try to develop.
"It's challenging," he continues. "We want to give Dox Box on an institutional standing, to give it some continuity and stability. Right now, the state is treating it like a one-off event that it deals with on a year-by-year basis.
"It's because we lack a culture of independent activity. This is what's being established with events like this: To say that there are independent activities that need their own sphere and their own regulations technically speaking. To say that now, in the absence of such regulations, it's difficult to keep Dox Box safe for the future. For the past 30 years there were no such events happening in Syria. This is why we don't have the infrastructure, the background, to rely on."
Bethany Randell ran Dox Box's industry section, which included a script-writing workshop and a panel in which festivals and funds gave presentations to inform young documentary-makers what resources are available to get their work made and distributed.
"Young filmmakers need to know that there are people to support hem, who can teach them how to make a treatment or a pitch," she says. "Then there are those with loads of money to make their films and to give advice about how to go through the process of doing it ... It's all very well to have great ideas but it's often difficult to sit down to manage and organize a big idea to bring it to fruition ... They need to be taught how to work in collaboration.
"Having the workshops in English was an obstacle in a way. You can say it's unfair: This is an Arab country and you should be able to do it in Arabic. But if you want to talk to people who might be interested in producing your film you should be able to speak to them in the lingua franca for business, which is English ... The people who have money for making creative documentary right now are in Europe."
"We had six projects and four observer filmmakers," says Anmar Hijazi, who led the script-writing workshop. "There is one project and three observers from Syria. The others were from Lebanon and from Egypt ... Unfortunately, the Syrian project participant couldn't come back after the first day. It was tough on him in the beginning. He didn't have this project complete in his mind, so he stopped."
"The Lebanese and Egyptian workshop participants have had training in audio-visual schools, if not film schools," observes Jeriroudi. "They know what they want and they can put their vision into a language that producers can understand. But for the Syrians it's an opportunity. They want it but they don't really know how to express it yet."
The team have definite criteria for the growth of Dox Box.
"We'd like to succeed in having Q&A sessions after the films," says Nyrabia. "We managed to do some roundtables and debate tables this year. Mainly, I think, the dialogue between filmmakers and audience needs developing. Aside from that, it's all in the details.
"We need to work on breaking the ice with young filmmakers. They have this kind of intimidation with international people and opportunities so we will keep trying to find ways to attract them more.
"Our starting point is that Dox Box is the only professional documentary festival in [the Arab] region. There is an international interest in finding a center, an annual platform where everyone can find what going on with Arab documentaries. On the other hand, we want to offer Arab filmmaker this platform where it's at least cheaper and more accessible to meet the international market and international professionals. As a test, this year it was successful."
Copyright The Daily Star 2009.
