Syria’s Voice and Conscience: Omar Amiralay
April 13, 2011
reelfestivals.org
HE NEVER SHIED AWAY from confronting and exposing the social and economic injustices of his home. Syrian filmmaker Omar Amiralay was Syria’s voice and conscience.
Amiralay was a longtime pro-democracy supporter; in 2000, he was a signatory of the Damascus Declaration, which led to the “Damascus Spring.” When he died this past February, he left a legacy of documentary films that exposed and confronted poverty and oppression.
Amiralay’s career in documentary filmmaking spanned the five decades of the ruling Ba’ath Party. As the protests of the last month show no signs of abating, we can look to Amiralay’s films as a guide to what has shaped Syria and how her people have arrived at this point in their history.
This clip from Amiralay’s third film, “The Chickens,” documents how peasants suffered after the government’s failed farming ventures:
Amiralay did not only focus on his home country. His later films addressed social movements and activism in Yemen, Lebanon, and Egypt. This essay is a good overview of his groundbreaking and far-reaching work.
Watch more clips of Omar Amiralay’s on this YouTube channel. For more on Omar Amiralay, including interviews with the filmmaker, visit ArteEast.
