Saturday, September 30 at 11:00am | The Main Cinema
About Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo
Dir. Marya Zarif & André Kadi | 2022 | Canada | Arabic with English subtitles | 72 min
After losing her mother and father, Dounia, a girl full of dreams, flees war to find a new home with her grandparents. She relies on the power of a few nigella seeds and Princess of Aleppo to overcome many obstacles thrown her way. This animated feature film relays the traumatic journey of many Syrian refugees from a child’s point of view, while at the same time summoning all the magic and beauty of childhood, Syria’s history, and its possible future. Dounia and Princess of Aleppo is full of hope, bravery, and whimsy.
Directors' Bio
Born in Syria, Marya Zarif grew up in Aleppo. She studied communication and playwriting and graduated from INIS. In 2013, she co-created The House of Syria, a tribute to Syrian culture, and in 2015, she co-founded I Want to Play, a foundation that aims to transform the lives of Syrian refugee children through play. In 2020, she scripted and co-directed her first youth animation web series, Dounia.
After arriving in Canada in 2007 as a comic book writer and musician, André Kadi joined the entertainment studio Frima. Director of the art department and founder of a branch of the studio in Bordeaux, he opened a 2D animation studio there in 2012 and directed the series MaXi (2017) and L’Agent Jean! (2018) before co-founding Du Coup Animation and Du Coup Production in 2018. In 2020, he co-directed the series Dounia with Marya Zarif for Tobo. Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo (2022) is his first feature film.
Presented by Mizna
Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than twenty years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.