The chants of "The people want the fall of the regime" and "Freedom, freedom, freedom" that French director Antoine Chapon included in the opening and closing scenes of his film, Al Basateen - The Orchards, echoed in the screening theatres of the Berlin Film Festival in mid-February, a reflection of the celebrations of the fall of the Syrian regime two months ago.
In his 23-minute documentary, part of the "Forum Extended" section, director Chapon recounts through the voices of two witnesses, Basima and Anas, the story of the destruction of their home in the Basateen al-Razi neighborhood of Damascus. Under the pretext of urban planning for the area, the Assad regime intended to punish them for their participation in protests against his rule.
The director, who combines cinema, CGI animation and archives in his works, also "hijacks" along with his two witnesses and other Syrians, the regime's project, the Marota city, built in place of Basateen al-Razi’s residents’ homes.
They altogether modified maps of the city available on the internet adding graffiti of the Syrian revolution and the cactus. The director and the Syrians participants in the film turn them into a symbol of their neighborhood.
In the film, Basima and Anas talk about how the Marota project has changed the environment of the orchards by uprooting the olive trees and cactus and planting palm trees in their place. Basima, who was evicted from her home before it was destroyed, argues that whoever lives in Marota City will find it soulless. The smell of blood of many innocent people killed by the regime's bullets or the cry out of grief for their homes and trees fill their streets.
I met Antoine Chapon at the festival. Here is an interview with him.
- How did you start the project? What did motivate you to make a film about Syria?
When I was studying 10 years ago at the High School of Social Sciences in Paris, I attended two classes on the Syrian revolution. I was politically interested in what was happening in Syria. I was really touched. Then I met friends like Khaled Dawa, Dunia Al-Dahan and Reem Ali. They told me a lot about torture in Syrian prisons and about the Syrian revolution. I was very moved by that.
The project kicked off after I met Mahmoud Hamoud, who helped me to find Syrians who used to live in the Basateen al-Razi district of Damascus.
Syrian Detainees Play Their Forgotten Music in Berlin
14 December 2024
At the beginning, I didn't want to make a film about Syria, but about this neighbourhood and the new urban project: Assad's slogan pretended to be the new face of Syria, emphasizing how beautiful Syria is.
We talked about this neighborhood and the Marota City project many times, for several months. I didn't even want to make a film about the project, but step by step, I thought it would be interesting to meet people to show the contrast between the new fancy Marota City and what really happened before in Basateen al-Razi.
- While making a documentary film, the director usually doesn't know the outcome. Could you share with us this process?
When we, myself and the producers, started writing about the film to raise funds, it was more about a Syrian I met in Mount Lebanon. I was interested in the life of a gardener from Basateen al-Razi, who used to work in Syria and then in Lebanon, giving sense to this connection between his work in both countries.
I lived in Lebanon in 2019 to learn classical Arabic for a month at Saint Joseph University, but I forgot almost everything (he says laughing). Since then, I have visited Lebanon many times.
From the beginning, I was sure that I would use animation to show the propaganda of Assad and the architecture companies. My intention was to show this very cool and fancy animation alongside the stories of the people who used to live there.
Then I met a lot of Syrians from Basateen al-Razi. Mahmoud, who I just mentioned, helped me meet about six witnesses.
After months of research, I thought it would be more interesting to show just Anas and Basima in the film, talking about their memories of Basateen, firstly because their family knew each other, and secondly because they're from two generations, he's in his thirties and she's older than him. Basima and her husband built their house in Basateen al-Razi. This reinforces the memory of her home.
In addition to the two protagonists from Basateen pointing their homes in the map, we see two other Damascenes in the film, also sitting in front of computers. And then there are ten other Damascenes chanting slogans.
The entire film process took five years. That's a long time, but it's normal if you want to tell their story properly and not use it. You can imagine how many interviews I did with the Syrians over a long period of time. Basima wasn't sure she wanted to participate at first, she thought 'what does this French guy know and want about Basateen al-Razi', and then it got better.
- We hear witnesses recounting their memories, but we don’t see their faces, for security reasons. Is it right to assume that if you had made the film after the fall of the Assad regime, we would have seen a different film?
Throughout the making of the film, but also the fundraising, I made sure to protect the participants’ identity by changing the names in the film file. During the shooting, I asked them to change the locations where they stated they lived. You never know what the Syrian secret services are capable of.
It's interesting. A few days ago, when my Syrian friend Dunia (who also took part in the film) and I were talking and I was recording the Zoom interview, she said: "Antoine, you are more paranoid than we Syrians are, in terms of communication".
Basima and Anas talk about how the Marota project has changed the environment of the orchards by uprooting the olive trees and cactus and planting palm trees in their place. Basima, who was evicted from her home before it was destroyed, argues that whoever lives in Marota City will find it soulless.
So of course I couldn't show the faces. The question was how to show the emotions. But then I decided to show a lot of hands, through which you can see the age and imagine the person, whether old or young. And the voices could convey a lot of emotions. Basima was angry... she was crying.
When I met the cinematographer Juliette Barrat and the editor Laura Rius Aran, I pitched the film as a film about hands and voices.
When Assad fell, the witnesses called me and said we could make another film showing our faces. But as we know, it takes time.
- Times have changed; could the witnesses in your film give their full names now?
Maybe, we are still cautious, we have to ask them.
- Your film is understandably very political. Could you explain your decision to include pro-revolutionary chants in the first and last scenes of the film?
We had a few days of shooting. I thought it might be interesting to have the chants, the songs of the revolution, since we don't have the faces. The ten Syrians we see in the film sing many of the songs. We only included a few of them. We filmed them with their backs to the camera. So basically, I choose them because it works with the images. I mean, when the film starts, we see the 3D animation of the city hanging in the sky. The two witnesses kept telling me that for them it felt like an illusion, a mirage. I thought, let's make a mirage, and as a contrast I wanted to make a collage with parts of Syrian revolution songs like 'Hurriya' (freedom) and 'Jana Jana', which are part of the revolution, similar to the graffiti.
Also, I thought it was important to have them in the film because they could carry the emotions of the protagonist, since we don't see their faces.
- When you watch the film, you get the impression that it's about a group of people who are desperate to see their home in Syria again, and who see this project as a closure to help them move on.
We made the film before the fall of the Assad regime. Watching the film now, with Assad gone, moves me. In the scene where Basima reads some graffiti, I selected two that say: 'We will finish our story, and we will come back' and the other one 'The empty cities don't breathe, we will come back'.
Here we hear Dunia questioning this in a desperate and ironic way: 'Yes, we'll be back. Of course we will'. And here we are, watching the film, with lots of Syrians having returned to Damascus.
- Talking about the fall of the regime, did you think about editing the film to have a reference at the end, before the submission to the Berlinale?
I thought about it, but knowing the deadline, we couldn’t do it.
We made the film before the fall of the Assad regime. Watching the film now, with Assad gone, moves me. In the scene where Basima reads some graffiti, I selected two that say: 'We will finish our story, and we will come back' and the other one 'The empty cities don't breathe, we will come back'.
- Your film is in a way a farewell to good memories and a neighborhood that Syrians have lost. For your protagonists, return has become a possibility.
Mahmoud sent me a text in Arabic, a draft decree circulating on social media, saying that the construction of Marota would continue, but that the first completed building would be given to the people of Basateen who had lost their homes. And that would be nice if it were true, because they evicted many from their homes and wiped out their building.
A lot of people from Basateen were still trying to stay in other suburbs of Damascus. And, you know, it was very expensive to live in the center, other neighborhoods were flattened, like Daraya, Yarmouk and Jober.
I mean, even if we wanted to buy an apartment in Marota City during Assad's rule, it was not possible. It was very expensive.
- Have the two protagonists of your film visited Syria after the fall of Assad?
Yes indeed. But coming back indefinitely is a different question.
- The cactus has become an emblematic plant of Basateen al-Razi, particularly in the sequence, in which you ‘hijack’ the animation materials of Marota city.
Yes, we 'hijacked' Marota's videos that were posted on YouTube channel. While we were writing the film, Dunia, Mahmoud, Laura and I were brainstorming. What should we do with these fancy animations? We had a lot of ideas, like putting fires or revolutionary crowds on them, but we thought it wasn't poetic. Then we came up with the idea of putting Syrian revolutionary graffiti on the walls. We found thousands of them on a Syrian website called Syrian Memory.
I was worried that our graffiti would go unnoticed by the audience. So, I decided to add cactus to the videos because I thought it's about plants and trees... they've been rooted in the ground for 200 years, even before the Assads ruled in Syria. It's a poetic statement. Dunia, one of the protagonists, told me that whenever she thinks of Basateen Al-Razi, she thinks of trees in the sky, arguing that we can use our imagination as a tool of resistance.
- Are you planning to show the film in Damascus?
That's a possibility, but I don't know how at the moment. I would love to have a screening even in a building in Marota City. It would be very interesting.
Thanks Antoine and good luck.
