TASTE OF CEMENT

Synopsis

Taste of Cement is a portrait of workers in exile. Ziad Kalthoum creates an essay documentary of Syrian construction workers building new skyscrapers in Beirut on the ruins caused by the Lebanese civil war. At the same time their own houses are being bombed in Syria. A Curfew prohibits them from leaving the construction site after work. Every night the news from their homeland and the memories of the war chase them. They must endure until the new day arrives where the hammering and welding drowns out their nightmares.

Director Biography

Ziad Kalthoum is a Syrian filmmaker who started filming his first medium length movie (OH, MY HEART) in 2009, about a story of a group of Kurdish women who lived in a village without men for political and social reasons. The film was banned from the screening in Syria because it is not allowed to talk about Kurdish society. It was considered as the first film to speak about the Kurds of Syria. In 2012 he began filming his feature film THE IMMORTAL SERGEANT when he was a soldier in compulsory military service at the same time of the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. The film premiered at Locarno Film Festival, and he won the Best Film Award at the BBC Arabic Film Festival. In 2013, after defecting from the Syrian army and refusing to fight against his own people, he fled to Beirut and began filming TASTE OF CEMENT.