Best Syrian documentary movies

Binxet - Under the border (2017)

“Binxet – Under the border” is a journey between life and death, dignity and pain, struggle and freedom. It takes place along the 911 km of the turkish-Syrian border. On the one hand the ISIS, in the other Erdogan’s Turkey. In the middle the borders and one hope. This hope is called Rojava, only one point on the chart of a troubled region, a region of resistance and an example of grassroots democracy that speaks about gender equality, self-determination of peoples and peaceful coexistence.

The War Show (2016)

A Syrian radio DJ documents the experiences of herself and her friends as their dreams of overthrowing their elected government give way to the grim realities of sectarian death squads and extremism.

Roza – The Country Of Two Rivers (2016)

The documentary is telling the Rojava Revolution, with stories of Assyrian, Kurdish, Arabic people. This people are subjected to the ISIS attacks, on the other hand they are trying to build a communal system like democratic autonomy. This struggle is not easy in a region like Syria, where the war continues and showing the effects on people’s life.

Step by Step (1978)

In a rolling area of Syria, the villagers live their everyday life, in toil and poverty. Trapped between the hardships of farming, religious and political ideologies, they barely survive. Their children are the only ones that are still full of hope. They imagine their future lives and picture themselves as doctors or engineers. But these are pipe dreams. All they can actually look forward to is farming the land with primitive tools like their parents, getting a menial job in the city or becoming brainwashed soldiers..

Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (1974)

The first documentary to present an unabashed critique of the impact of the Syrian government’s agricultural and land reforms, Everyday Life in a Syrian Village delivers a powerful jab at the state’s conceit of redressing social and economic inequities.

My Memory Is Full of Ghosts (2024)

Like a visual elegy, My Memory Is Full of Ghosts explores a reality caught between past, present and future in Homs, Syria. Behind the self-portrait of an exsanguinated population in search of normality emerge memories of the city, haunted by destruction, disfigurement and loss. A deeply moving film, a painful echo of the absurdity of war and the strength of human beings.

Kafr Kassem (1975)

On the eve of the Israeli attack on Egypt in 1956, Israel declares martial law in all the occupied Arab territories without any previous notice. When the villagers of Kafr Kassem returned home from the fields, they were butchered and killed in what is known today as the massacre of “Kafr Kassem”.

The Greatest Sacrifice (2018)

The film examines the eternal conflict between good and evil. Two main characters try to keep their home town on the path to democracy. Crushed between two evils they make the greatest sacrifice.

The Dream (1987)

Interviews with Palestinians living in Lebanese refugee camps, some of it shot in Sabra and Shatila before the massacre.

Ritorneremo (2002)

A Silent Cinema (2001)

Meyar Al Roumi returns to his native Damascus, eager to start making films, but he is censored. He draws inspiration from it to paint a portrait of the Syrian filmmakers most affected by censorship.

Loin du pays (1969)

Today and Everyday (1980)

The filmmaker’s directorial debut after joining the National Film Organization, this short documentary follows young children in preschool as they become exposed for the first time to notions of learning, reciting, and proper pronunciation and molded into conformity.

Light and Shadows, the Last of the Pioneers: Nazih Shahbandar (1994)

Trained as an electrician, Nazih Shahbandar became fascinated with the technology behind film production and was one of the pioneers of cinema production in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1947, he set up a studio fitted with film equipment that was almost entirely of his own fabrication. He wrote scripts, built sets, and innovated new methods of sound recording and transmission. As an enthusiastic inventor, he produced and directed the first Syrian film with sound. His dream was to film and screen a 3D film. An ode to cinema, this documentary is a portrait of Shahbandar.

Film-Essay on the Euphrates Dam (1970)

The construction of a dam on the Euphrates River is an example of a country’s economic development. Through grandly composed images, rhythmic editing, and aestheticized details, the director demonstrates his admiration for the interwar avant-garde. The film is a celebration of the new, while at the same time showing a traditional way of life and calling attention to working conditions; it is a refrain-like evocation of an arid country that explores the difficult lot of Syria’s rural inhabitants.

Far Away From Home (1969)

A film documenting Al-Sabineh camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria, with an unprecedented experience at the time, as he took the children after filming to show them the footage he filmed of them, the camp and its people, and recorded their reactions, laughter and speech, and added them to the film.