Program Note
Ali, who will be a father soon, is a pilot delivering humanitarian relief supplies to the people of the Syrian war zone. He became a pilot because he wanted to be with his pilot father who was always absent because of wars in Bosnia, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. In spite of his father’s dissuasion, Ali is taking the responsibility of transporting people from Palmyra to Damascus instead of watching his child’s birth. People who are in Palmyra are at risk of an Islamic Sunni militant group, ISIS. Heading to Damascus seems to be proceeding smoothly with the cheers and cooperation of the residents, but they are attacked continually by ISIS. They face different terrors including, kidnapping, beheading and airplane suicide attacks. Those are reminiscent of hell. You can immerse yourself in arranging the sound effects and music to the miseen-scène, such as camera composition, characters arrangement, lighting, and screen color, which goes through realism and super realism following the narrative. In this film, Iranian director Ebrahim Hatamikia won the FIff2018 Crystal Simorgh for Best Director. It is a fundamental question about life and death, religion and ideology, and consideration of what human beings live for. Another virtue of this film is that it did not delay the time of climax and ending with the popularity of remorse or heroism. The ending scene and end credits in aries and fantasies make your feelings for the film last longer. (HONG Eun-hwa)