NCIFF ’24: Dounia, the Great White North

Poor Dounia desperately misses her father. You can blame Iran and Putin for that, because they enabled and encouraged the carnage Assad unleashed on his own country, particularly her hometown (as seen in her first film, Dounia: The Princess of Aleppo). Fortunately, Dounia and her grandparents found safe refuge in Quebec, where they have been largely welcomed by their new northern provincial community. Her mother died in Syria, but they still hope to be reunited with her father, whose fate remains unknown at the start of Marya Zarif & Andre Kadi’s Dounia: The Great White North, which screens during the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Dounia and her grandparents never come out and say it, but it seems like they find it weird that they must learn French after coming to Canada. Hopefully, the local version of identity politics-tribalism never turns violent, because Dounia’s family has seen more than enough of that.

Dounia forged a fast friendship with Rosalie, the girl next-door, who also happens to be the daughter of the school teacher. Even though she is starting to fit, Dounia worries constantly over her missing father, so their classmate Miguizou introduces them to her grandmother, whose Atikamekw wisdom might help the Dounia’s spirit animal guide her father to sub-Arctic Quebec. That might sound like a longshot, but this is a fable, not an expose or a white-paper report.

The Great White North is also a quickie, clocking in just under an hour, making it highly appropriate for the under-10-year-old target demo. The animation might be a bit simple for serious connoisseurs of the medium, but it captures the look and feel illustrated children’s books.

VIFF ’21: Lamya’s Poem

Nobody was more responsible for the massive human tragedy in Syria than Iranian Quds commander Qassem Soleimani. That would be the same Soleimani FilmTwitter mourned after Trump took him out in an airstrike, in the mistaken notion the enemy of Trump couldn’t be all bad. In contrast, the Syrian people were celebrating. You can understand why when watching the suffering he set in motion for Lamya’s family. However, she takes comfort from the poetry of Rumi, as well as a magical time-spanning friendship with the young poet in Alexander Kronemer’s animated feature Lamya’s Poem, which screens online as a selection of the Vancouver International Film Festival.

There is only one teacher left in Aleppo, but Lamya is still one of his favorites. He even lends her books from his library, like a treasured volume of Rumi’s poetry. That becomes his party gift to his pupil when the bombing forces her widowed mother to evacuate the city. Braving the seas on a refugee raft is a dangerous and expensive undertaking, but she believes it is the only way for her daughter to have a future.

During moments of high stress, Lamya is somehow transported back centuries, where she befriends the young Rumi, who is also fleeing Mongol invaders. However, his father makes a fateful decision to take advantage of their refugee state, to make pilgrimage to Mecca. While it is unclear whether these sequences are meant to be dreams or magical realism time travel that ambiguity probably increases their effectiveness. Frankly, it would not be surprising if Slaughterhouse Five was an influence on Kronemer.

Is America in Retreat? Johan Norberg Asks the Question

The term “world’s policeman” is often used in a derisive, Keystone Cops sort of way, but couldn’t this world use a bit more law and order? Maybe America does not necessarily have to fulfill those duties, but who else has the sufficient wherewithal? China? We have seen how they police their own people and it is highly problematic. Johan Norberg, Cato Institute Fellow and Executive Editor of Free to Choose Media chronicles America’s recent trend towards international disengagement and assesses the long-term implications in Is America in Retreat (trailer here), directed by Kip Perry & Elan Bentov, which airs throughout the week on select PBS stations.

If there is one single pivotal event in recent history for the commentators in Retreat, it would undeniably be the Obama Administration’s dangerous decision not to enforce its own “red line” prohibiting Assad from using chemical weapons against his own people, meekly accepting a “Russia deal” instead. Retreat explicitly links the “red line” capitulation to the subsequent refugee crisis, as well as the Putin’s military aggression in Ukraine. As Bret Stephens argues:

“Bashar Assad crossed that line by killing a thousand people with Sarin gas in Damascus. There were no consequences. Vladimir Putin observing what happened in Syria took Crimea in the space of a couple of days. Even then, there were almost no consequences.”

Norberg travels (as near as he can to) to three geopolitical flash points, where the lack of American leadership can be directly felt. The first two are indeed Ukraine and Syria (represented by recently arrived migrants in Germany), which receive plenty of media attention. However, the third flash point, the South China Sea, is arguably the most critical, but under-reported.

One of the big take-aways from Retreat is the role first Britain and then the U.S. have played ensuring safe navigation during their respective Pax Britannica and Pax Americana. Throughout the last seventy years, the U.S. Navy has frequently mounted “Freedom of Navigation” operations through international waterways that overreaching nations have claims in defiance of international law, much like the British did during the prior century. In each case, the British and Americans have been the only nation powerful enough to do this kind of maritime policing, but we also stood to gain the most by maintaining the unfettered flow of international trade.

However, American foreign policy now officially takes no positions regarding territorial claims in the South China Sea, which is obviously an open invitation to China to bully its neighbors. Norberg shows us the human cost of our deference to the PRC, traveling with a crew of Filipino fisherman who are chased out of their own waters by the Chinese Cost Guard.

Another big takeaway from Retreat is its application of James Q. Wilson’s Broken Windows Theory to foreign policy. It makes a convincing case we have reaped greater international instability and human rights catastrophes by ignoring smaller ones, like the poison gas attacks in Syria or Beijing’s island grabs. Unfortunately, it does not leave viewers feeling optimistic. Despite talking like an internationalist, Obama followed a policy of reckless retreat more often than not. Yet, rather perversely, he has been succeeded by a President who frequently falls back on “America First” rhetoric.

It is rather ironic the generally libertarian Free to Choose Network and the “Classical Liberal” Norberg would make this case for a more engaged U.S. foreign policy, but it also makes their arguments harder to ignore. Provocative but soundly reasoned, Is America in Retreat is highly recommended for all American citizens concerned about our position in the world. It airs in various cities throughout the week, including this Thursday (3/30) on Baltimore’s WMPB and Saturday afternoon (4/1) on New York’s WNET.

Sundance ’15: The Amina Profile

Razan Ghazzawi is one of the few Syrian dissident bloggers who posts under her real name. A critic of censorship and an advocate of women’s rights and tolerance for gays and lesbians, Ghazzawi has been arrested twice by the Assad regime and still faces potential prosecution and constant interrogations. This film should have been about her, but it is not. Instead, it chronicles the short but provocative history of Amina Arraf, who was very much like Ghazzawi, except she was a hoax. It is a strange and ultimately unhelpful story told in Sophie Deraspe’s The Amina Profile, which screens during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

What started as an online flirtation for French Canadian Sandra Bagaria soon turned very real, except it wasn’t. Perhaps she should have been more suspicious in the age of catfishing, but the ostensive Arraf always had good justifications for her elusiveness, such as the fact Skype is blocked in Syria. With Bagaria’s encouragement, the Arraf persona launched the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, which soon became a retweetable phenomenon. To their credit, the person behind the phony identity had a decent handle on the Syrian situation, but said individual (easily findable online) misjudged badly when they decided to have Arraf kidnapped.

Having been widely cited in credible media outlets, as well as The Guardian, news of Arraf’s abduction ignited an online firestorm of protest. However, as real deal Syrian dissident Rami Nakhla explains, it diverted attention from legitimate known prisoners of conscience, such as Ghazzawi. It also gave an opportunity for the pathologically anti-Israeli Electronic Intifada to do the Assad regime a favor by following the i.p. trail of the person behind the Gay Girl in Damascus.

Ironically, Profile does exactly what it decries, by concentrating almost entirely on the Arraf story, at the near total expense of Ghazzawi and other imprisoned Syrian activists. It would have made much more sense to divide the narrative between the very real perils facing Ghazzawi and the bizarre Arraf narrative unraveling concurrently. However, we have to deal with the film as it is, rather than how it might have been.

To an extent, Deraspe justifies Profile’s editorial strategy by following Bagaria’s long-term efforts to process the revelation. It is good to know that she was able to reach some measure of closure, but without the wider Syrian implications, her experience would not be so very different from that of Manti Te’o.

Anyone intrigued by Profile should definitely try to catch it while it makes the festival rounds, because it is hard to see it playing on PBS, given some of its early erotic imagery. Of course, HBO might be a possibility. It is never dull, thanks to Deraspe’s solid sense of pacing and the hot button issues it addresses, but one cannot help wishing she had widened her focus. For those who are fascinated by media hoaxes and feeding frenzies, The Amina Profile screens today (1/25) in Salt Lake and tomorrow (1/26), Thursday (1/29), and Friday (1/30) in Park City, during this year’s Sundance.

Frontline: Syria’s Second Front

You can draw a lot of conclusions about people simply from judging the groups trying to kill them. Most western observers are utterly baffled by the bedlam of the Syrian Civil War. However, it is pretty easy to side with the initial rebel groups who rose up against the Assad regime and now find themselves battling a virulently Islamist faction in the north, once the particulars of the conflict are established.  This Tuesday, PBS’s Frontline broadcasts Syria’s Second Front and Children of Aleppo (promo here), two boots-on-the-ground reports from Syria documenting the precarious state of the original, largely secular rebels and the dire conditions faced by sympathetic civilians.

ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is supposedly so extreme and violent, al-Qaeda wants to keep them at arm’s length. Presumably, they will patch things up if ISIS takes operational control of Syria, which is not outside the realm of possibility. They have little use for secular society and a special enmity for reporters, whom they are perfectly willing to execute on sight. Nevertheless, Muhammad Ali, a daring independent journalist with a memorable name, has infiltrated ISIS controlled territory with a team of Free Syrian Army aligned rebels.

When ISIS eventually leaves town, everyone is relieved to see them go. Frankly, many of the local citizenry are quite courageous expressing their hopes for a free secular democratic state. However, the prospects are rather iffy, even if the fractious rebel forces can unite against both ISIS and Assad. Second Front offers some cautious optimism on this score, but it is tempered by the shocking footage of the better organized ISIS brutally administering Sharia Law.

According to Children of Aleppo, an estimated 11,000 children have been killed in the course of the Syrian conflict. Most parents opted to shelter their sons and daughters outside the country. One FSA captain is a notable exception. He and his wife still live in their once fashionable Aleppo flat with their son and three daughters. The captain’s comrades are now like extended family to his girls, which would be almost heartwarming, if their familiarity with the sounds of war were not so tragically well developed.

Those who have seen Matthew VanDyke’s Not Anymore will also recognize his footage of a twelve year old protest singer, who just started performing for his camera as a shell landed nearly on top of them. Both survived, but she evidently now lives in Qatar. Frankly, VanDyke’s film is even more effective than the Frontline films at putting a human face on the Syrian civil war. Although it is now available online, interested New Yorkers can see VanDyke’s short doc on the big screen on February 28^th as part of the 2014 Winter Film Awards. In contrast, Syria’s Second Front better establishes the ideological and geopolitical context for the various factions.

The one-two punch of last month’s Secret State of North Korea and the upcoming Syria’s Second Front make this Frontline’s strongest season perhaps ever. Both Broadcasts represent solid investigative journalism conducted in countries that do not recognize press freedoms. Highly recommended, Frontline’s twofer of Syria’s Second Front and Children of Aleppo airs Tuesday night (2/11) on most PBS stations nationwide.

AFI Docs ’13: Not Anymore (short)

Filmmaker Matthew VanDyke has unusual but highly pertinent qualifications to document the Syrian revolution.  The self-described freedom fighter escaped from Gaddafi’s Abu Salim prison, where he was held in solitary during the Libyan civil war.  Like a Twenty-First Century throwback to partisan press corps that covered the Spanish Civil War, VanDyke both documents and advocates on behalf of the everyday Syrians rebelling against Assad’s dictatorship in his short documentary, Not Anymore: a Story of Revolution (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 AFI Docs presented by Audi (as it is now officially, if awkwardly known).

VanDyke’s fixer is also his producer and subject.  Nour Kelze sounds like she was once the sort of modern, educated woman so desperately needed in the Middle East.  A former school teacher, she explains she once wore fashionable clothes and high heels, but “not anymore.”  With the onset of the Ba’ath regime’s crackdown, she became a war photographer, adopting the profession’s Kevlar helmet and vest.

Kelze guides viewers through the chaos that once was the thriving city of Aleppo.  Although still populated, the neighborhoods strafed by Assad’s forces now look like a ghost town.  Free Syrian Army commander “Mowya” wryly observes Assad certainly made good on his promise to clear out the panhandlers from the desolate, bombed out streets.

While Not Anymore clocks-in just under fifteen minutes, VanDyke captured more action in that time-frame than he probably would have liked.  Unlike some documentary filmmakers, he is clearly willing to put himself on the front line, just like his producer.  That gives the doc real immediacy and authenticity.

Throughout the film, VanDyke’s interview subjects pointedly ask why America has not forcefully interceded on their behalf.  He is understandably diplomatic in his responses, but the hard truth is for the last four years or so, American foreign policy has been more interested in cultivating relations with regimes like Assad’s than changing them.  Perhaps his film will open some eyes.  Granted, it has a decided point of view, but it still is a powerful example of cinematic journalism.  Recommended for all viewers concerned about conditions in Syria, Not Anymore screens tomorrow afternoon (6/20) and Sunday morning (6/23) as part of the Truth Be Told programming block at this year’s AFI Docs presented by Audi.