Director

Soudade Kaadan

Syria | 2018 | 95 min | Arabic

• Producer Amira Kaadan
• Production Company Kaf Production , Metaphora production , Acrobates films
• Screenplay Soudade Kaadan
• Cinematography Eric Devin
• Editing Pierre Deschamps, Soudade Kaadan
• Sound Victor Bresse
• Cast Sawsan Arsheed, Reham Al Kassar, Samer Ismael, Oweiss Moukhallalati 
• Contacts

  KaF Production
  a.kaadan@kafproduction.com

   

About the Film

Soudade Kaadan and her team worked on this project for four years to bring forth an aspect of the complicated strife that is ongoing in Syria. The film does not offer explanations or present solutions. It offers perspective through a one-day trip that Sana planned to make, but things rapidly get out of hand and she finds herself in the midst of a multisided conflict driven by different intentions.

With the beginning of the civil war in Syria, Sana tries to maintain a semblance of normal life in the house that she lives with her son. Power outages, shortage of water and cooking gas get in the way of normality and the ongoing bombing of Damascus's different neighborhoods disrupts her plans.

Sana, along with Galal and his sister, decides to venture on a risk-filled trip to a nearby city to refill the cooking gas cylinders.

They end up in a city on the outskirts of Damascus controlled by non-governmental groups. Sana finds herself in the middle of a conflict-ridden world that she did not plan on going to and worries about her son who is at home by himself. Over the next three days she discovers that people in war-torn areas are prone to losing their shadows. The change that happens during war is not circumstantial or temporary. It touches the souls and the very essence of human beings indefinitely.

The film was very well received at the Venice Film Festival, where it was awarded the Lion of the Future – “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film. The Day I Lost My Shadow comes to El Gouna Film Festival after its screening at the Toronto Film Festival, and in parallel to the Festival Scope in Los Angeles.

Intishal Al Timimi