'We are not refugees, we are footballers': How dreams became reality for four Syrian boys from Zaatari

At the height of Syria’s civil war in 2014, the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, intended to be a temporary sanctuary, was home to 79,000 people. Today, 10 years later, more than 77,000 remain.

When circumstances are fixed in the sand, it’s hard to keep hope alive. Dreams don't feel worth dreaming. But for four young men who grew up in the camp and dared to see beyond its guarded gates, their wildest dreams persist even now.

Six years ago, those four – Omar Al Deiri, Qais Al Damen, Hafeth Al Mohammed and Ahmad Anjari – were recruited to the Black Pearls Academy in Brazil, a football club that gave them a shot at professional careers in the sport. Still teenagers at the time, they were discovered thanks in part to Jordanian lawyer Hashem Sabbagh, who spearheaded the project. Sabbagh also felt their journey had to be documented, and called up a childhood friend and filmmaker Bassel Ghandour to help him tell their story.

The resulting documentary series that follows the boys from Zaatari through the first years of life in Brazil is Chasing Dreams, a Katara Studios release now available exclusively on MBC’s Shahid streaming service. Originally intended for a 2020 release as a 20-minute short, filming extended years longer than originally planned.

“Whenever we showed anyone the footage, they were amazed,” Sabbagh tells The National. "They had never seen a refugee story told with such positivity. So we regrouped and decided we needed to follow these boys through whatever happens in the long term."

Because of that change, Sabbagh and Ghandour’s documentary is more than just a glimpse at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now, their work is a story of transformation, from refugee teenagers into grown men who no longer define themselves by their circumstances.

“There’s a moment in the series that was so touching for us to experience from behind the camera,” Ghandour says. "It’s when they all felt they had shed the refugee label. They really wanted to move away from it – they reached a point where they saw themselves as footballers. They had such a lack of control in the refugee camp, but this gave them the power and the urgency to take control of their own lives.”

As a result, Ghandour and Sabbagh approached the project first and foremost as a sports documentary. They resisted the urge to focus on the hardship that they escaped and instead purposefully witnessed them become people beyond their pain – both on and off the pitch.

“We quickly realised that it doesn’t matter if they make it. We cared about them because they were trying,” says Ghandour.

For Ghandour, who directed the series, the project came at a time when he needed to be reminded why he loved storytelling in the first place. After his film Theeb was nominated for an Academy Award in 2014, Ghandour was announced as the writer of Netflix’s first Arabic original series Jinn in 2018, a project he departed before filming began. Not long after, his old friend called him up asking him to direct a documentary – and he initially baulked at the idea.

“I was just coming off a terrible project that I had to quit,” Ghandour says, reticent to say which project he’s referring to. “That experience forced me to re-examine what I wanted out of film, out of this career. But when Hashem called me up, my first thought was, I’m not a documentary person.”

Nevertheless, Ghandour agreed to make the trip to Zaatari, and there, everything changed. “What really helped me was seeing the world through their eyes – through so much hope and hunger,” says Ghadnour. "It convinced me to take a leap into a world I didn’t know, either – documentary filmmaking.

“Looking back at it, I can say that the balance of fear and excitement – of learning not to plan things out meticulously and instead following the story as it goes – re-energised my love for storytelling. It changed me, and my approach entirely.”

The project, meanwhile, transformed Sabbagh’s life fundamentally. “Before this project, I was a finance attorney working in New York City for six years," Sabbagh adds. "I had no interest in filmmaking before this – I just wanted to make a social impact. And it took me completely out of my comfort zone, and I’ll never be the same."

And as the number of people forced out of Palestine and Lebanon continues to grow in the current landscape, Ghandour is seeing, again and again, those people reduced to their pain.

“Particularly in western media, there’s an oversimplification and malicious representation of what it means to be an Arab broadly," says Ghandour. "In telling a story that focused on Arab dreams rather than Arab suffering, we’re offering a counter-narrative.

“This is their true perspective – this is what makes us human beings – our love, ambition and curiosity. We all want to be something more than the limitations we’ve been handed, and that is what makes us all alike. And when we relate to each other, we can help each other far more.”

Chasing Dreams is now streaming on Shahid