NEZOUH

Director’s statement

It is only after the bombing started in our neighborhood in Damascus that I left the house with my sister. Damascene society was really closed even in liberated families. Women were allowed to travel, work, study, everything but to live alone. With the new wave of displacement it’s became normal for the first time to see young Damascene women living alone and separating from their families. Many of my friends started to take decisions they would never dare to make before. Now, sadly, that there is no more society and its structure and priorities have changed, something new happened. In the middle of war chaos and tragedy there is always some light and some freedom.
Media is unable to notice this change since the stories of armed men with religious flags are more captivating than stories of women opening the door house in war time. NEZOUH in Arabic is the displacement of soul and people; it is the displacement of spirits and bodies in Syria. 

Producer's statement

I was always involved in the production of my films, it started with a necessity: it was very difficult to find a producer who would be interested in working with a first-time female filmmaker in Syria before the war. So I started slowly producing and directing my films. And in 2013, I started producing with my sister Amira Kaadan (associate producer for Nezouh) through our company KAF PRODUCTION and together we participated at Torino Lab/Dubai Interchange and Access Media Business School. I spent more than a year working on the treatment. The moment I locked the image of THE DAY I LOST MY SHADOW, I started seeing the images of NEZOUH and started to rewrite the treatment. I submitted the film to Baumi Award where it was awarded the prize announced in Berlinale February 2018. The story of NEZOUH is derived from the current events happening in Syria and it explores the hidden sides of the Syrian society along with the secret taboos that were rarely unveiled.