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Return to Homs
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Return to Homs
IDFA 2013

Return to Homs

Return to Homs
Talal Derki
Syria, Germany
2013
87 min
World Premiere
Festival history

Filmed between August 2011 and August 2013, this is a remarkably intimate portrait of a group of young revolutionaries in the city of Homs in western Syria. They dream of their country being free from President Bashar al-Assad and fight for justice through peaceful demonstrations. As the army acts ever more brutally and their city is transformed into a ghost town, the young men become armed insurgents. The protagonists are two friends: Basset, the charismatic 19-year-old goalkeeper of the national soccer team whose revolutionary songs make him the voice of the protest movement, and the 24-year-old media activist and cameraman Ossama. The close-up camerawork takes the viewer right into the group. Scenes of lively protest parties make way for panicking civilians on the run, followed by grim battles in a deserted city, and rising numbers of fallen loved ones. Basset's a cappella protest songs are the only soundtrack, apart from the "silence, interrupted only by birds and bullets." From time to time, the director makes a comment in voice-over: “The world is watching how we are getting killed one by one, while it remains silent as the grave.”

Credits
Director
Involved TV Channel
    SWR/ARTE,
    NHK,
    SVT,
    TSR
    SWR/ARTE,
    NHK,
    SVT,
    TSR
World Sales
    Journeyman Pictures
    Journeyman Pictures
Screening copy
    Proaction Film
    Proaction Film