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Activist videos from Syrian war get their own film festival

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Over the last 3 1/2 years, the Syrian civil war has produced terabytes of battlefield videos, made by auteur activists who have flooded social networking sites such as YouTube, Instagram and LiveLeak. It’s often a dangerous task, taking video during fierce clashes or airstrikes.

The filmmakers’ camera of choice? The not-so-humble smartphone.

It was natural, then, according to the organizers of the Syrian Mobile Phone Film Festival, to create an event that celebrates the medium.

“The idea came about because the number of mobile-phone films coming out of Syria is huge,” said Amer Matar, one of the organizers, contacted by phone in Istanbul, Turkey. “We thought it was important to do something about this new way of filming with which Syrians are obsessed.”

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Almost a year in the making, the Mobile Phone Film Festival kicked off this month, showing selected films made in five rebel-held areas in northern Syria: Kafr Nabl, Aleppo, Atareb, Jabal al-Zawiya and Al Bab. It goes on the road in the coming days to cities such as Beirut, Paris, Istanbul and London.

“In the beginning there was the camera,” is the fitting slogan for the festival’s inaugural edition.

The locations of the screenings are a reflection of the filmmakers’ affiliation but also a matter of sheer volume. The bulk of the output has been from opposition activists eager to document attacks by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The civil war began as a series of peaceful protests in 2011 that soon descended into chaos and violence. The conflict has killed more than 190,000 people, according to United Nations estimates. It has also resulted in millions of refugees and wrecked much of the country’s infrastructure.

Screenings in areas held by the government were viewed as impractical.

“The regime doesn’t allow the space for this sort of expression,” said Matar, who, like his fellow organizers, opposes the Assad government.

The festival faced a unique set of challenges in holding the screenings in Syria. The specter of airstrikes, a daily reality in rebel-controlled areas, has made people wary of congregating in groups. It forced the organizers to take extra precautions.

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“We decided to announce only the day of the screenings, but not where or [at what time] they would be held,” Matar said. “We relied on word of mouth to spread the details on the day of the show, because if there was an announcement the location might get bombed.”

The festival, set up by Al Sharee (“the Street”) Institute and supported by groups such as the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Germany and the Menapolis research group based in Turkey and Tunisia, will award three $1,000 prizes to cellphone films in three categories: those less than one minute long, those not exceeding 10 minutes and lengthier features.

A jury composed of artists, critics and journalists will choose among 21 selections as well as award scholarships and provide training for aspiring filmmakers.

The films are to focus on “topics and issues that touch upon the daily lives of those who made them,” according to the statement on the festival’s website. It’s a directive that clearly resonated with the filmmakers, who depict the often mundane struggle of people trying to go on with lives interrupted by war.

One film shows children playing at a park in a village near the rebel-controlled portion of Aleppo city. The boys scamper up ladders, tugging on swings. Soon, the camera leaves them, zooming out to a plaque in the foreground erected in honor of two children who had died in a barrel bomb attack there.

Another short, one of the few to be shot in a government-held area, is an unadorned view of a funeral for a Shiite Muslim fighter. A mourner announces that the man had fought to defend the honor of Zainab, the eldest daughter of the prophet Muhammad and an important figure for Shiites.

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Militias organized on sectarian lines have played a prominent role in the conflict, drawing fighters from the region as well as from Western countries to take part in a religious war that has made the area increasingly polarized.

“Abu Shaheen,” another offering, invites the viewer into the life of a round-faced boy toiling in a port, presumably in Turkey, before the black-and-white scene gives way to amateur video of a protest against the Assad government. The boy — who, despite his youth, is nicknamed Abu Shaheen, meaning father of Shaheen — is seen at the head of the protest, hoisted up on the shoulders of a man.

His soprano voice, shrill and defiant with anger, leads the crowd in a damning chant against Assad.

“Oh, Bashar! Oh, Bashar! You brought shame. You kill your own people!”

In his current life in the port, Abu Shaheen, caught in a rare cigarette break, looks to his interviewer.

“They took it away,” he said of his life in Syria.

When the interviewer asks who “they” are, the boy scoffs. “Who? Those who took away my family, my brother, and my country.”

Bulos is a special correspondent.

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