Post-film panel discussion (Ticket revenue from this screening will be donated to help Syrian Refugees at abroad)
Our Terrible Country portrays the fraught journey of well-known Syrian intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh and photographer Ziad Homsi. After meeting in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, the two travel together through a war-torn Syria to Raqqa in the northeast. Yassin, age 53, spent 16 years in prison for belonging to the Syrian left and in 2011, and was forced underground to serve that country’s popular uprising. When they arrive in Raqqa, the city is occupied by the "Islamic State in Iraq and Levant" (ISIL). Saleh flees to Istanbul to write for the revolution, while his wife Samira remains in Douma. Ziad – briefly abducted on his way back to Douma – joins Yassin after his release, hoping to return home soon.
FILMMAKER
Mohammad Ali Atassi is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was born in 1967 in Damascus, Syria. Atassi obtained a diploma in civil engineering from Damascus University in 1992 and a DEA in history from the Sorbonne Paris 4 in 1996. Since 2000, he has been writing for several Arab and international newspapers on political and cultural topics. In 2001, he directed a documentary examining the Syrian dissident Riad Turk’s 18 years in prison. Atassi explored Turk’s political positions on the Syrian revolution in a second documentary Ibn Al Am Online (2012). Atassi’s award-winning films have been shown in several festivals worldwide.
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