Ladder To Damascus

Mohamad Malas, recognized widely as Syrian cinema’s first auteur, resurrects the ghosts of his country’s thirty-year-old dictatorship with this searing drama, shot in Damascus under a shroud of secrecy and at great risk after the outbreak of the 2011 insurgency.

SynopsisGhalia believes that a girl called Zeina, who drowned in the sea on the same day Ghalia was born, has inhabited her soul. Her neighbour Samer is a projectionist who brings films home to watch in his room. While Ghalia is asleep, Zeina leaves her body to check on her parents after 23 years – and meets Samer. Zeina falls in love with Samer; Ghalia is in love with her Japanese teacher and dreams of leaving for Japan. The two women’s love stories exist in two different times simultaneously.

About the DirectorMohamad Malas was born in 1945 and studied filmmaking at VGIK in Moscow from 1969 to 1974. Soon after, he directed ‘Al Quneitra 74’ (1974) and ‘The Memory’ (1977). He went on to direct many films, including ‘The Dreams of the City’ (1984), ‘The Night’ (1992), ‘On the Sands, Under the Sun’ (1998), ‘Passion’ (2004) and ‘Al Mahhed’ (2007). ‘The Dreams of the City’ received many awards, including the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival; ‘The Night’ (1993) won awards at several festivals including the Freibourg Festival and the Bruges Festival