Underplayed Gems

Batata (2022)

Batata poster
Directed by
Noura Kevorkian
Genre
documentary film
Country
Lebanon, Canada
Runtime
2h 05m
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

This documentary follows Maria, a Syrian woman working in Lebanon, as the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis disrupt her life. The film shows her efforts to keep her family safe and together amid these overwhelming events.

intimatepoignantobservationalgroundedresilientsoberingpersonalslow-burn

What happens

Batata is a Canadian-Lebanese documentary film, directed by Noura Kevorkian and released in 2022. The film is a portrait of Maria, a Syrian woman working in Lebanon whose life is upended by the Syrian civil war and its associated refugee crisis. The film had originally been conceived in 2009, prior to the outbreak of the war, as a portrait of Maria's father Abu Jamil and farmer Movses (Mousa) Doudaklian, two men who built a close friendship through years of working together on Doudaklian's potato farm in Lebanon despite the history of enmity between Lebanese Christians and Syrian Muslims. As the outbreak of the war turned the farm into a desolate refugee camp, its focus shifted more squarely onto Maria, depicting her determination to keep her family safe and united in the face of the larger forces that threatened to destroy them. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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