Al-Ahmad: Arab festivals' boycott of Syrian films is their loss

Director of the General Organization for Cinema, Mohammad al-Ahmad, said the not-participation of Syrian films in Arab film festivals is the loss of these festivals, hailing the Syrian film "Mariam" over winning the Arab Film Award at the 4th International Film Festival held recently in al-Dakhla city in Morocco. In an interview with SANA, al-Ahmad expressed his congratulations to Basel al-Khatib, the film's director, for his achievement which led to winning the Award for which seven films from Morocco, Algeria, Oman, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia competed. "Mariam", which tells the story of the destiny of three women, each named Mariam, who face various aspects of war living at different times, is one among many prominent and successful productions by al-Khatib, many of them were translated to several other languages. He regretted the boycott of the Syria films by some Arab film festivals, refrrign particularly to the exclusion of "The Lovers" and "My Last Friend" from Dubai Film Festival and Cairo Film Festival. Al-Ahmad stressed that Syria is exposed to a "dirty and ferocious war" as "never before cultural and artistic production was boycotted even in the darkest of political crises between countries." He expressed pessimism in the future of Syrian cinema, noting that the General Organization for Cinema has been more productive over the past two years in terms of film production, movie publications and organization of cinema events. "This is the least that we can do for our homeland which has given us much," said al-Ahmad, highlighting the vital role the Ministry of Culture and cultural institutions could lay in dealing with the current crisis in the country.