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French international sales company Andana Films has boarded Tawfik Sabouni’s documentary “The Other Side of the Sun,” which will receive its world premiere as part of the Panorama section of this year’s Berlinale.
In the film, the director returned to the Syrian capital of Damascus in the immediate aftermath of the Assad regime’s collapse. There he met four fellow former detainees of the notorious former Saidnaya prison. Through re-enactments inside the prison itself, the documentary “turns memory into testimony, revealing resilience and an unbroken will to survive,” Andana said.
Damascus-born Sabouni was arrested and ended up in Saidnaya after filming the Syrian uprising in March 2011. After his release, he studied film directing at INSAS in Brussels, graduating in 2022. He also worked as a director for radio and as a dubbing actor for TV. His short films “On the Edge of Madness” (2021) and “Stateless” (2022) screened at several international festivals.
Years after his release from Saidnaya prison, also known as “the other side of the sun,” the director returned to the site of his captivity, which is no longer in use. Joined by fellow survivors, he re-enters the physical spaces of their imprisonment – not to re-open wounds but to “reclaim what systematic violence tried to erase, using carefully crafted re-enactments of daily rituals and moments of survival to express what words cannot,” according to a statement.
The viewers are confronted with the testimonies of Sabouni, Mahmoud Kadah, Abdelkafi Alhaj, Mohammad Hamki and Abdelhamid Jadou, all of whom suffered horrific, degrading treatment.
“This film is a testimony carried by the voices of five survivors,” Sabouni explained. “Through our memories and our stories, it seeks to understand what happened behind the walls of Saidnaya and the reasons for the disappearances.”
“Tawfik Sabouni offers a powerful film and an essential, lasting document about the prison of Saidnaya,” Stephan Riguet, managing director of Andana Films, said. “The film reveals the horror of a system and its executioners, while also bringing out a profound human beauty born from the protagonists’ listening and solidarity.”
The director co-developed the script with Laurine Estrade. DOP is Sameer Orabi, while the editing was in the hands of Dani Abo Louh. Bilal Sultani signed for the sound, with Lucas Lauwers responsible for the sound editing and Alek Goosse for sound mixing.
“The Other Side of the Sun” is produced by Julie Freres for Dérives (Belgium), Jean-Baptiste Bonnet for Habilis Productions (France), and co-produced by Hanne Phlypo for Clin d’œil Films (Belgium). Ziad Ali of Art Maker Production handled production duties in Syria.
The film is co-produced by RTBF (Télévision belge), WIP – Wallonie Image Production, Shelter Prod, Al Jazeera Documentary Channel and the Red Sea Fund. It was supported by the Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, the CNC, Région Normandie, SCAM, La Culture avec la Copie Privée, Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Taxshelter.be, ING, the Tax Shelter of the Federal Government of Belgium, Coopération belge au développement, the European Union and IMS.
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