Less about protestors on the streets and more about the personal and emotional impact of fighting against a brutal regime, Syrian filmmaker/journalist/campaigner Lina’s film is a moving and thoughtful look into how protests are planned, how friendships are challenged and how fear of violence is a terrible constant.
As the brutality of Syria’s police state, and its suppression of any kind of dissent, is played out in the margins, the film follows young independent filmmaker and reporter Lina through video diaries, smuggled footage and memoirs, using her own voiceover to share the personal story of her close group of friends – Susu, Rima, Malaz, and Bassel – as they are dragged deeper into the struggle for freedom.
Despite its rather low-key nature, the film’s perspective is an intriguing one. These young people may well be seen mainly hanging out in their apartments chatting on the phone and playing with cars, or secretly filming while driving the streets, but their concern for Syria and willingness to transform from fresh-faced young reporters into determined activists is striking.
The film opens with a gentle voiceover by Lina who tells how: “In 1982 a massacre happened in Hama, Syria – thousands killed and disappeared, and Libya declared a police state…a year later I was born.” After graduating she started working as a video journalist and gradually found like-minded friends. They are filmed as enthusiastic young people, full of charm and energy. But as Lina warns: “We knew about that massacre and the police state…and all knew walls had ears.” When the protests start, all changes for them.
“Six months into the revolution we had become an activist group,” bonded by the creativity of Malaz and driven by the passion of Susu, she says. Describing herself as an “upper class girl from the capital” she also decided to take on different personae for self-protection. “So I split up – I was Maya amongst journalists but amongst activists I was Maiss…that way Lina continued to appear apolitical,” she says. When Lina heads to Aleppo she becomes Lama.
Chronicling events that took place between 2011 and 2015, the film also makes it clear that “for the safety of some of the people featured in this film, various techniques including deepfake and blurring were used to conceal their identities,” which adds an unexpected use of the synthetic media to what is otherwise a straightforward film.
In essence, much of 5 Seasons of Revolution is about the grind of protest and the tense waiting to hear if friends and colleagues have been arrested and questioned. There is regular footage of meetings friends from prison, as well as watching television for news of President Bashar al-Assad launching yet another attack on his own people. Things take a dark turn when one of the group is killed while out investigating a massacre – plaintively the body is filmed wrapped in a sheet and lying on a table-tennis table.
As months become years Lina head backs to the front lines and witnesses the gradual destruction of her country, and during a trip to Aleppo she is held captive, witnesses torture and suffering before being eventually released. By the end of the film things become just too much and she and many friends opt to flee the country. In truth, they are the lucky ones who have that option and the means to do so as Assad’s regime continues to oppress the people.
This is a film that never screams or shouts and features no real footage of mass protest or bloody violence, but instead, gently and matter-of-factly, tells the country’s dreadful story as seen by ordinary people. People like Rima and Susu (and Lina herself) carried the fight in their way…and suffered physical and psychological damage. Though gentle in many ways, 5 Seasons of Revolution is also provocative, moving. brave and powerful.
Syria, 2023, 95mins
Dir: Lina
International sales: Anonymous Content
Production: No Nation Films, Piraya Film, Docmakers
Producers: Diana El Jeiroudi, Orwa Nyrabia, Torstein Grude, Ilja Roomans, Lina
Screenplay: Lina, Diana El Jeiroudi
Cinematography: Lina
Editors: Diana El Jeiroudi, Barbara Toennieshen
With: Lina, Sus, Rima Dali, Bassel Sheadeh, Malath Aizoubu
