Feature film
الترحال
Rimon Butros · 1997
Synopsis
In Hama, between 1948 and 1954, a Christian family lives waiting for the father. Abu Fahd, a stonecutter who is often away, has gone to work in Palestine; word comes that he has joined the fighters. The war of 1948 breaks out, refugees pour in, and his family look for him among them. His wife Mahassen weaves at the loom, the children plait mats, and the eldest, Fahd, takes up his father's trade to feed the household, while his sister is married off out of self-interest.
Context
Written and directed by Rimon Butros six years after his previous film, and produced by the public body, the film draws on its author's childhood memories and on the past of his city. It blends the social life of Hama, the welcome given to Palestinian refugees and the period of the coups d'état, making the water of the Orontes and the stone of the houses the two materials of the city. Samar Sami, Jamal Suleiman, Salloum Haddad, Nora Rahal and Sulafa Memar play the leading roles.
Who it is for
A feature film in Arabic, seen partly from a child's level; it benefits from being set alongside Syrian history from 1948 to 1954.
Prizes and reception
Silver prize at the Damascus festival in 1997 and at the Pyongyang one; one critic sees it as the film that sums up its author's cinema on its own.