Our Memory Belongs to Us

Synopsis

Nearly 10 years after the beginning of the Syrian revolution, three Syrian activists – Yadan, Odai and Rani – reunite on a theatre stage in Paris. Through life-size projections onto a big screen, Syrian director Rami Farah confronts the three men with footage, some of it their own, depicting events that changed their destinies forever. Watching the brutal footage together, they reflect on their personal journeys, revive their collective memory, and wonder what is left of their hopes and dreams. Their reunion serves as a unique window into the complexity of the situation in Syria, where a peaceful uprising was replaced by a ferocious war.

Director Biography

Rami Farah is a Syrian performer and filmmaker born in Damascus in 1980. He first studied dance in Damascus at the High Institute for Dramatic Arts and has attended many training courses and workshops in contemporary film and dance in France and Denmark. His first films and videos both use a blend of dance and audiovisual material. “ZamKan”, made in 2004, unfolds as a dialogue between a ceiling fan and a chair in a silent room. It was followed by “Point”, a short arts video that was screened in several exhibitions and festivals around the world. He also co-created the work “Not a matter of If But When” with Julia Metzer and David Thorne. After graduating from the Arab institute in 2007, Rami made a 35-minute documentary about the Golan Heights entitled “Silence”. A Comedian in a Syrian Tragedy is Rami's first long feature film. It premiered in IDFA 2019. Signe Byrge Sørensen is a two-time Oscar® nominated film producer for the documentary films The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence. She was nominated for a Producers Guild of America Award in 2016 for The Look of Silence. She won Cinema Eye Honors for the production of both films. She has also won the Danish Documentary and film awards: the Roos Prize (2014), the Timbuktu Prize (2014) and the Ib Producer award (2016). Signe has been a producer since 1998, first in SPOR Media, then in Final Cut Productions Aps. In 2009 she and Anne Köhncke founded Final Cut for Real. She has produced documentaries in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Thailand, Indonesia, Colombia, Argentina, in addition to Scandinavia. She holds a master’s degree in international development studies and communication studies from Roskilde University (1998), Denmark, and is a EURODOC (2003) and EAVE (2010) graduate.