by Orwa Al Mokdad
300 Miles separate the filmmaker and journalist Orwa Al Mokdad from his niece Nour. Both live in Syria: he in the south, and she in Aleppo. The film starts a journey from Daraa to Aleppo to understand the reasons that have shattered the whole Arab region over the country’s history and the distance that has grown since the beginning of the Syrian war. A distance that has split the region and its inhabitants into North and South. Orwa Al Mokdad's debut film is an anti-road movie that documents the impossibility of travelling through a war-torn country. 300 Miles was awarded Best First Feature in Doclisboa International Film Festival.
The film screening is followed by a Q&A with film director Orwa Al Mokdad moderated by Nidal Dibs.
Year: 2016 / Genre: Documentary / Original Version: Arabic (English subtitles) / Film Run: 95 min
Production: Film 4 Art with the support of Bidayyat for Audiovisual Arts, Al Mawred Al Thaqafy, Ettijahat-Independent Culture, Goethe-Institut Libanon, The British Council
Orwa Al Mokdad is a filmmaker and a journalist who graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the Damascus University. He has published various articles in Syrian and pan-Arab newspapers and has been a reporter for Al-Jazeera, BBC, France 24 and Orient TV since the start of the Syrian insurrection. He has made several short films, including “Street Music” (2013), awarded by the Samir Kassir Award for freedom of the press, “Under the Aleppo Sky” (2013) and “Under The Tank” (2014), selected for Locarno’s section Pardi di domani – Concorso internazionale. His latest feature documentary film “300 Miles” premiered at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival and won the prize of Best First Feature Film at the 2016 Doclisboa Film Festival.
Syrian filmmaker born in 1960,
Nidal Debs studied architecture at the University of Damascus and graduated in 1986. Debs participated in several art exhibitions and published a number of short stories. Later, he joined the Moscow Film Institute (VGIK) and graduated in 1995. He directed a number of short feature films during and after his studies, most of which received several awards at local and international festivals, such as Yaleel Ya Ein, Winter Sonata and Collage. He also directed two long feature films: Under the Roof 2005, which has won numerous awards, received world acclaim, and was screened at several international and local festivals; and Rodaj in 2010. He also directed a documentary film titled “Black Stone” in collaboration with the Syrian writer Khaled Khalifa in 2006. He taught "Film and Performance in Front of the Camera" at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus. Nidal participated as a jury member in many international and Arab film festivals and cinematographic cultural institutions. He is currently living in Cairo where he is completing a new documentary entitled “The Next Show”.
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