Documenting Syria: Film-making, Video Activism and Revolution

This monograph gives an overview of the history of Syrian documentary cinemaand describes how Syrian documentary filmmaking and grass root mediaactivism emerged, developed and documented life and society in Syria, priorand after the start of the Syrian Revolution in 2011. Based on extensive mediaethnography, and in-depth interviews with Syrian filmmakers in exile, grassrootmedia activists and fieldwork in Turkey and Syria, the book provides an archivalanalysis of the documentary work by masters of Syrian cinema, such as NabilMaleh, Ossama Mohammed, Mohammed Malas, Hala Al Abdallah, Hanna Ward,Ali Atassi and Omar Amiralay. The book describes how these Syrian cinemamasters played a defining role in avant-garde filmmaking and political dissentagainst authoritarianism since the 1970s. The works of these filmmakers becameiconic for a younger generation of talented documentary filmmakers, just beforethe Syrian revolution and provided the foundation of the formation of filmcollectives and personal networks. The book describes the emergence of ayoung urban group of activists and filmmakers who emerged in the capital ofDamascus since beginning of the 21st century and who engaged in various civilsociety activities prior to 2011. A special chapter is dedicated to the life andworks of the late Syrian filmmaker and pro-democracy activist Bassel Shehadehwho died in Homs in 2012. The second part of the book focuses on the periodafter the popular uprisings in 2011 and how mobile phone footage andYouTube radically changed the documentary and media landscape in Syria. Aspecific attention is placed on the role of grassroot video activists andfilmmakers from Aleppo and Raqqa and their brave video-resistance not onlyagainst the authoritarian regime of President Bashar al-Assad but also againstjihadi extremists and, specifically in Raqqa, against the Islamic State (IS). (Less)