Underplayed Gems

Little Syria

Little Syria poster
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How it feels

A brother, his sister, and her boyfriend are stuck between Syria, the place they fled, and Europe, which sometimes welcomes them and sometimes pushes them away. The documentary follows their uncertain lives in limbo.

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What happens

Little Syria is a 2025 documentary film directed by Madalina Rosca and Reem Karssli and produced by Paul Arne Wagner and Madalina Rosca. The film had its world premiere on March 22, 2025, at CPH:DOX, and it follows the story of a brother, his sister and her boyfriend, trapped between a Syria from which they ran for their lives, and a Europe which at times embraces them, and at others pushes them back. Since its World Premiere in March 2025, the documentary had its continental premieres in Latin America, in Buenos Aires, Argentina at the 21st International Film Festival of Human Rights, in Africa at Zanzibar International Film Festival, in Australia at Sydnay.Doc, but also in Germany, in Romania at (TIFF), in Greece, in Ukraine at Kyiv International Film Festival "Molodist", in France at Montpellier Film Festival, in Portugal at Porto/Post/Doc and other countries. The film's screenings sparked discussions and controversies, especially on topics such as migration and refugees, with the creation of side-events such as the talks with Search and Rescue representatives of the organisation SOS Humanity, or talks with Hungarian director András S. Takács. Asked by journalist Cédric Lépine about the policies in Germany and Europe regarding the reception of refugees and the condemnation of crimes in Syria, the producer of Little Syria, Paul Arne Wagner, answered: "There is no coherent policy [...] the political discourse has deteriorated and changed completely. The ‘We can do it’ of the past has been replaced in the discourse of the current Chancellor Friedrich Merz by thinly veiled racist insults, insinuating that certain people have no place in the German ‘urban landscape’ and will soon have to leave. This rhetoric is painfully close to the calls for forced re-emigration that were once an extremist position on the fringes of the so-called identitarian movement. The normalisation of such dehumanising rhetoric in just a few years should frighten us all." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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