SILVERED WATER, SYRIA SELF PORTRAIT / Eau Argentée

 

US Premiere • Documentary • France, Syria, 2014

DCP • 16/9 • Dolby 5.1 • Color • 103 min

Written and Directed  by: Ossama Mohammed, Wiam Simav Bedirxan

Cinematography: Wiam Simav Bedirxan, Ossama Mohammed

Film Editing: Maïsoun Assad

Original Score: Noma Omran

Produced by: Serge Lalou (Les Films d’Ici)

Co-produced by: Arte France, Proaction Film

International Sales: Doc & Film International

 

War has always been hell, but we haven’t always had cell phone cameras to capture it. Silvered Water, Syria Self Portrait documents the Syrian civil war in a way that war has never before been seen. Expressionistically edited from video postings on social media, the film achieves an immediacy that is powerful, shocking, and surprising. Organized into chapters, “1,001 Syrians” bear unblinking witness to the horrors, the senseless destruction, and chaos, but who would expect images of so many maimed and hobbled cats, or “freedom” written in blood on virgin snow? Exiled Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammed compiles his found-footage Guernica from Paris, and advises young Kurdish filmmaker Wiam Simav Bedirxan, who volunteers to act as his eyes in Syria, all the while commenting on his own sense of despair and helplessness, and hoping against hope that film can still make a difference.

 

Political dissent is the bread and butter of Syrian writer/director Ossama Mohammed. Admitting to having an obsession with facing authority, his first two features Stars in Broad Daylight (1988) and The Box of Life (2002) were banned by the Syrian government despite receiving warm receptions internationally. At the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, Mohammed publicly denounced the Assad government. He has since been awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, and is now a political refugee in France. His collaborator, Wiam Simav Bedirxan, is a Syrian Kurdish filmmaker who documented the siege of her home town, Homs, after smuggling in a compact camera.

 

Quotes:

“Devastating to watch.”

- Deborah Young HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“Silvered Water isn’t meant to be a documentary about the war. Instead it’s a cry of grief, a witness to the incomprehensible.”

- Jay Weissberg VARIETY