Far from the Homeland

Syria | 1969 | 11 min | Documentary At the Sbeineh refugee camp near Damascus, director Kais Al-Zubaidi filmed aspects of everyday life in 1969, while focusing on children during their playtime activities, which were limited to football and sliding on a tent. The power of this film lies in the children's inclusion in the filmmaking process. After finishing filming, the director accompanied the children to the studio to show them footage of themselves, causing a noisy cheering and quarreling, which he filmed and added to the movie. A film by Kais Al-Zubaidi Kais Al-Zubaidi was born in Baghdad in 1945. Graduated from the Higher Institute of Cinema of Babelsberg (Germany) in editing and image, he began his career by participating in many documentaries for the Higher Institute of Cinema and for the DEFA studios. He is a screenwriter, director, cinematographer and editor. He is also a film critic and theorist. He shot regularly in Syria where he made documentary films focused on the Palestinian people, including “Far from the Homeland” (1969) and “Testimonies of Palestinian Children in Wartime” (1972). His films have won several awards at the Damascus International Film Festival, at the Palestine festival in Baghdad, the JCC - Carthage Film Festival and many other international festivals. He has directed and edited several films in Germany. He has also edited famous Arab films such as “Crown of Thorns” (Nabil Al-Maleh), the trilogy “Men Under the Sun” (Nabil Al-Maleh, Muhammad Chahine, Marwan Muazzin), “Everyday Life in a Syrian Village” and “On a Revolution” (Omar Amiralay), “The Knife” (Khaled Hamadeh), “Beirut, Oh Beirut” (Maroun Bagdadi), “Earth Day” (Ghaleb Sha'ath), “Return to Haifa (Qassem Hawal), “The Night” (Muhammad Malas).