Tiny Souls

Marwa and her younger sister Ayah and brother Mahmoud live in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. They fled from Syria with their mother and older brothers and sisters. When filmmaker Dina Naser starts documenting them in 2012, their respective ages are 11, 9 and 5.

The children speak openly with Naser about the horrors they experienced in Syria, but they remain resilient and cheerful. The setting is a huge camp cut off from the outside world by barbed wire. Here they live in primitive conditions, in a small space lacking running water or other basic necessities. Despite the hardships, this is where the children explore and play.

As the years pass, Naser sometimes loses contact with the family despite her best efforts. But the children continue to film each other with a camera she gave them. An abrupt turn of events at the end of the film reminds us of how precarious life is for this family fleeing war.