Big names are of course important, the French have commented, here is what Martin Scorsese says: “I was alarmed by the news that the Syrian actor and producer Orwa Nyrabia has been arrested by the Syrian regime, held in an undisclosed location and denied any communication with the outside world, including his own immediate family. The international film community must remain vigilant, and shine a light on every injustice perpetrated against our fellow artists. We need to maintain pressure to ensure the immediate release of Orwa Nyrabia.” – Martin Scorsese

 

 

Respect for the French filmmakers, who – initiated by Nicolas Philibert – have launched a petition for Orwa Nyrabia:

De Wes Anderson à Jet Li en passant par Elia Suleiman, la Société des réalisateurs de films (SRF) a lancé une pétition (1) coordonnée par le réalisateur Nicolas Philibert pour dénoncer l’arrestation du cinéaste syrien Orwa Nyrabia, survenue à l’aéroport de Damas le 23 août. Producteur indépendant de films documentaires, Nyrabia est le directeur du festival Dox Box de Damas, fondé en 2008, malgré la désertification du cinéma syrien. Il a obtenu le grand prix spécial de l’EDN (European Documentary Network) et a tenu le rôle principal dans la Porte du soleil, de Yousry Nasrallah en 2004. Comme le rappelle dans une lettre ouverte Ossama Mohammed, un autre cinéaste syrien, il rejoint la liste des intellectuels emprisonnés par Damas : «Le journaliste Mazen Darwich, le militant pour la paix Yehia al-Chorbajji, le comédien Osso, le metteur en scène de théâtre Cordello, l’écrivain Zirai.» La Cinémathèque française, le Festival de Cannes, la SACD (Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques), la Scam (Société civile des auteurs multimédia), et l’ARP (Société civile des auteurs-réalisateurs-producteurs) ont également protesté de leur côté.

www.la-srf.fr

http://next.liberation.fr/cinema/2012/08/29/le-cinema-se-mobilise-pour-orwa-nyrabia_842720

For a documentary person, who normally sits in a cinema or in front of a tv/computer screen, when he watches – it is something special to visit an art exhibition that has its focus on a theme that is regularly dealt with in current documentaries: Migration. An art exhibition that conveys this theme through films and videos. First you enter a totally dark room, look around for a seat, find one which is uncomfortable, sit there but decides to change position and end up on the floor with your back to the wall – to enter a world of images from today. You know these images already, you have seen them again and again on television news, or in a documentary film frame. But here in the art museum the films and videos do not give you any explanations, you do not need them, there is no story as we know it from modern documentary, non-linear it is and you enter the images without knowing if this is the start, the middle or the end. It is not important. Lucky you are – for a moment – to leave the character driven emotional story to be invited just to think about what you see.

This is the case if you visit the fine exhibition at Brandts in Danish city Odense, where six visual artists show their works. With the theme in common but with very different aesthetics. The artists are Alfredo Jaar (Chile/US), Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan), Aernout Mik (Holland), Isaac Julien (UK), Guido van der Werve (Holland), Ursula Biemann (Switzerland), Jens Haaning has

done the intelligent design of the exhibition: 6 dark rooms, one for each artist, like boxes with very small corridors between one and the other. You get the feeling of being locked in, of klaustrophobia, similar to the migrants in the films and videos shown. The exhibition is curated by Lene Burkard.

Isaac Julien is definitely the star of the show. His 35mm material is organised in impressive big tableaux, pans of wrecks of boats stranded on the shore filmed from the other side of the fence, from our side, dancers on white cliffs, one climbing like Odysseus, another waiting like Penelope, contrasts between rich and poor, music bites from Africa from where the migrants come, bodies arranged on lit-de-parade on beaches where tourists are having fun – very much arranged and metaphorical, whereas drama are in the sequences from the sea where people fight to reach the shore. Alfredo Jaar’s work is a registration of an event, a concert performed on both sides of the US/Mexican border. It suffered from a bad sound side. Chen Chieh-jen’s film from Taiwan is strong in its stylisation where women tell their stories about how badly they were treated when they applied at The American Institute to get a visa for a travel to the US. Even more annoying is the second part where Chinese women, from mainland China, wanted permission to live with their spouses in Taiwan. Dutch Aernout Mik had a two-screen presentation of tv news bites, which in this context were not tv news but examples of images from our world of today, evidence of pain and anger and bombing, and police police police all over. Quite interesting way of making the viewer see an alternative organisation of images that we know the story behind, and once in a while we discover the people behind the news, walking after water or waiting to have their case settled at the authorities. I left Guido van der Werves video out of boredom, whereas Swiss Ursula Biemann via five screens gave a strong informative and emotional insight to the Tuareg’s role in smuggling people to Europe from the desert and the Moroccan police’s ambition to catch those who want to get out of the African poverty. In that part of the exhibition I learned something about refugee travel structures.

The photo is from “The Cloud” by Alfredo Jaar, the balloons in the background symbolizes the many people who died while trying to cross from Mexico to the USA.

The exhibition runs until September 16 in Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark.

http://www.brandts.dk/en/current-exhibitions?option=com_exhibitions&view=article&id=35

While waiting for further news about the detaining of Orwa Nyrabia, and while international media like al jazeera and France24, as well as documentary organisations and festivals like EDN, idfa and DOKLeipzig spread the news and concern – a facebook page has been established, ”free Orwa”, as one friend writes about him, ”the Smile of Cinema”. Link below.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/الحرية-للسينما-السورية-الحرية-لعروة-نيربية/448821121824084

Shocking news! This text came in 5 hours ago from Diana el Jeiroudi, filmmaker, producer, co-founder of the Dox Box Film Festival in Damascus and partner of Orwa Nyrabia:

“Syrian film producer Orwa Nyrabia disappeared this afternoon on on his way heading to Cairo at 5:00 pm, on August 23, 2012. I lost contact with him soon after his arrival at Damascus International Airport. According to Egyptian Airlines, he did not board the plane, which indicates that he was arrested by the Syrian authorities at the airport. Orwa Nyrabia, born in 1977, is a film producer and the director of the DOX BOX Film Festival in Syria.”

Orwa Nyrabia is the one, who since March 2011 has collected and spread information about the atrocities and massacres on the civil population in Syria. Readers of filmkommentaren will know his name from the many postings we have done based on his reporting. He is known and well respected in the documentary community all over the world and has – together with Diana el Jeiroudi – been awarded for his work to create awareness for the importance of the documentary film in his country and the Middle East region.

I am sure that friends and film people all over will shout to the Syrian regime: Free Orwa Nyrabia!