Directed by Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim, Lebanon/Qatar/UAE/France/Switzerland, 2016, 103 minutes, Arabic with English subtitles. 

Amidst the popular uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011, a group of former Lebanese detainees break their long-held silence about the horrific years they spent imprisoned in Tadmor (Palmyra), one of the Assad regime’s most harrowing prisons. They decide to testify publicly about the systematic torture and humiliation they experienced. To reclaim and overcome this dark chapter in their lives, they stage scenes they had experienced back in Tadmor in an abandoned school near Beirut. By playing the role of both victim and victimizer, they relive their experiences of both suffering and survival.

The MENA Prison Forum (MPF) is an interdisciplinary initiative. Launched in 2018, it is dedicated to researching prison culture in the MENA region. The project engages a collaborative international network that includes former prisoners, filmmakers, academics and activists from various countries to address carcerality around the region. Together with ALFILM – Arab Film Festival Berlin, medico international, and UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R), the MPF is presenting a special event in HAU with a focus on Syria.

With the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, images of freed detainees from Syria’s gruesome prisons flooded our screens. The present moment is a crucial one to shed the light on the inner workings of this intricate system and to explore the traumatic experiences of those who were held and tortured by it.

The event will feature the screening of Tadmor by Monika Borgmann and Lokman Slim followed by a film talk with co-director Monika Borgmann and one of the film’s protagonists, former detainee Ali Abu Dehn.

In cooperation with HAU Hebbel am Ufer.