Syrian artists confront trauma in new film 'The Story Won't Die'


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American filmmaker David Henry Gerson is the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

It's this family history of exile and trauma that has enabled him to bond with Syrian artists whose lives have changed since protests first broke out in 2011.

Illustrator Diala Brisly and rapper Mohammad Abu Hajar are among those featured in Gerson's documentary The Story Won't Die, an intimate look at the political unrest in the nation.

He speaks to a handful of musicians, dancers and visual artists about how they have used their art to confront their trauma and share their experiences.

In 2016, Gerson watched a short documentary about refugees landing in Lesbos, Greece, called 4.1 Miles, directed by Daphne Matziaraki, and felt the resonance of what was the largest displacement of people since the Second World War.

Filmmaker David Henry Gerson. Photo: RaeFilm Studios
Filmmaker David Henry Gerson. Photo: RaeFilm Studios

His father was born in Uzbekistan and grew up in refugee camps in Germany. As a child in the US, “these stories of exile and how to process exile were encoded in my DNA”, says Gerson. “So this just felt like a real moment of, I have to do something.”

He started his own research and found stories of “people who were like my friends in Echo Park in Los Angeles or in Brooklyn — musicians, breakdancers, rappers, visual artists — people I really admired and loved.”

Gerson had won a Student Academy Award in 2016 for All These Voices, a short narrative film about Holocaust survivors confronting the horror of war, inspired by his interest in the fearless writing of Primo Levi.

In the years that followed, he wondered which artists were asking the most questions in Syria, the ones that looked into darkness to try and process it.

In reference to Pablo Picasso's anti-war oil painting Guernica and Francisco Goya's The Third of May 1808, which commemorates Spanish resistance to Napolean's army, Gerson told how The Story Won't Die began with asking himself: "Who is making the Guernica of the Syrian civil war? Who is making the Third of May of the Syrian civil war?"

Initially, he was interested in artists such as Tammam Azzam, whose work varies from digital mash-ups of famous European art and scenes of destruction from Syria designed to capture the world's attention during the early days of the Arab uprising, to huge, abstract oil paintings made in exile that seem to look back at Syria with horror and nostalgic longing.

Syrian artist Tammam Azzam also features in the film. Pawan Singh / The National
Syrian artist Tammam Azzam also features in the film. Pawan Singh / The National

Abdalaziz Alhamza, the film's co-producer and a co-founder of the Syrian citizen journalist collective, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, suggested Gerson widen his net to include activists and how they used their art, introducing him to Hajar and Brisly.

While Hajar has used his voice to question Syria's president Bashar Al Assad, some artists want nothing to do with activism, says Gerson.

"They just want to express themselves, and shake off the weight of what they have been forced into. Each person is sort of on that spectrum in different capacities," he says. "So we have a real balance.”

Rapper Mohammad Abu Hajar and choreographer Medhat Aldaabal in the film. Photo: RaeFilm Studios
Rapper Mohammad Abu Hajar and choreographer Medhat Aldaabal in the film. Photo: RaeFilm Studios

The film is alert to the frustrations of people who feel they have become curiosities as refugees, a label Gerson tries to avoid using in the film. It is a notion that leaves some people feeling like "lab rats for documentaries", according to Bahila Hijazi, a member of the first all-female rock band in Syria.

“To be told you are this or that is the brick in the wall you don't want to run into as a creative person,” says Gerson, adding that it was important to leave in statements like Hijazi's. “It involves me, in some regards, and who am I to be telling their story?”

Gerson sought to work with artists in a spirit of collaboration, going through many drafts of the film together and gathering opinions along the way.

For Brisly, who lost a younger brother in Syria, doing the film was an eye-opening journey. When Gerson showed her the first edited clip, she began to cry, he says, as she realised other people were going through the same challenges as her.

“As she told me that, I just felt so grateful, frankly, that this work could have that simple impact of one person feeling less alone in the world with their struggle," he says.

'The Story Won't Die' will be available on Google Play and Vimeo Plus from June 21.

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Pari

Produced by: Clean Slate Films (Anushka Sharma, Karnesh Sharma) & KriArj Entertainment

Director: Prosit Roy

Starring: Anushka Sharma, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ritabhari Chakraborty, Rajat Kapoor, Mansi Multani

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Like a Fading Shadow

Antonio Muñoz Molina

Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez

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The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.

In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)

Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.

 

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Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow. 

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Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.

Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.

Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.

Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.

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Founders: Rishabh Khanna, Ankit Khanna and Sahil Makker

Based: India, UAE and the UK

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Initial investment: More than $200,000 in seed funding

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Director: Sudha Kongara Prasad

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Radhika Madan, Paresh Rawal 

Rating: 2/5

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252 projectors installed on Al Wasl dome

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Price: From Dh98,800

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Teachers' pay - what you need to know

Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:

- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools

- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say

- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance

- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs

- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills

- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month

- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues

Updated: June 20, 2022, 3:36 AM`