Our Terrible Country
+Panel Discussion
+Proceeds for Syrian Refugees
+Syria
Saturday, 11/7 at St. Anthony Theatre Main
1:00 p.m.
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Director: Mohammad Ali Atassi
Documentary feature, 85 mins, 2014
Country: Syria/Lebanon
Languages: Arabic
Minnesota premiere
Synopsis: Our Terrible Country portrays the fraught journey of well-known Syrian intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh and photographer Ziad Homsi. After meeting in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, the two travel together through a war-torn Syria to Raqqa in the northeast. Yassin, age 53, spent 16 years in prison for belonging to the Syrian left and in 2011, and was forced underground to serve that country’s popular uprising. When they arrive in Raqqa, the city is occupied by the “Islamic State in Iraq and Levant” (ISIL). Saleh flees to Istanbul to write for the revolution, while his wife Samira remains in Douma. Ziad – briefly abducted on his way back to Douma – joins Yassin after his release, hoping to return home soon.
Mohammad Ali Atassi is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was born in 1967 in Damascus, Syria. Atassi obtained a diploma in civil engineering from Damascus University in 1992 and a DEA in history from the Sorbonne Paris 4 in 1996. Since 2000, he has been writing for several Arab and international newspapers on political and cultural topics. In 2001, he directed a documentary examining the Syrian dissident Riad Turk’s 18 years in prison. Atassi explored Turk’s political positions on the Syrian revolution in a second documentary Ibn Al Am Online (2012). Atassi’s award-winning films have been shown in several festivals worldwide.
Awards:
Grand Prize of International Competition at FID Marseille, 2014
Prix Ulysse CCAS-Agglomération de Montpellier of International Competition Doc
Cinemed Festival, Montpellier/France, 2014
Best International Film, Forumdoc Festival Belo Horizonte/ Brazil, 2014
Best Audience and Best Youth Jury Awards, Punto de Vista Festival/Spain, 2015
Honorary Mention at PortoPostDOC Festival/Portugal, 2014
Festivals:
FID Marseille (International Competition), France, 2014
Sao Paolo International Film Festival, Brazil, 2014
Viennale, Austria, 2014
Carthago (International Competition), Tunisia, 2014
Karama Human Rights Film Festival, Jordan, 2014
Festival First Look, USA, 2015
Festival International du Cinéma Méditerranéen de Tétouan, Morocco, 2015
Panelist Bios
Mazen Halabi, a Syrian-American and community activist, left Syria following the Hama massacre in which more than 40,000 people were killed by the then President, Hafez Assad. He has advanced degrees in computer science and business. Mr. Halabi is the public relation director of Watan; a Syrian civil society organization. He lives with his wife and son in Champlin.
Suzan Boulad is a Syrian American activist and a third year law student at the University of Minnesota. She has worked in Gaziantep, Turkey with Syrian lawyers to open a center for legal services for refugees and currently advocates for refugee rights in the Twin Cities.
