at the lab - film screening
Omar Amiralay… Sorrow, Time, and Silence
Screening and Conversation with Director Hala Alabdallah

Saturday 20 December 2025 | 6:30 PM | The Lab Cinematheque

The film Omar Amiralay… Sorrow, Time and Silence by director Hala Alabdallah offers an in-depth exploration of the legacy of one of the foremost figures in Arab documentary cinema. It weaves together analytical reflections that link Amiralay’s personal life with the social and political transformations that informed his critical vision and shaped his body of work. The film is the result of more than a decade of engagement, built around a series of informal filmed conversations recorded with Amiralay before his sudden passing in 2011.

The film traces his professional journey; from his studies in France and his return to Damascus in the early 1970s, through the formative moments that shaped his artistic outlook.

The film will be screened in Arabic with English subtitles. To register, please fill out the form here.

-

This event is part of Reflections on Arab Documentary program
Projects at the Lab: The Cinematheque | All That We Witness launches this December and continues into January with a series of encounters exploring contemporary directions in Arab documentary practice. This phase focuses on works that approach broader realities through the lens of personal lived experience, tracing the ways individual memories intersect with, and often illuminate, collective events. In doing so, it reopens the question of what the documentary form can offer: how it brings the past into view, and how it responds to the urgencies of the present moment.

This first phase includes conversations, public discussions, and a workshop, alongside a film-screening program that opens this month with a film about the late Syrian director Omar Amiralay.

related