Love, hatred, fear, laughter, sadness; you name it, Sean McAllister’s heart-breaking documentary about a family of Syrian refugees has it in spades.

As compelling a romance as any you’ll find on screen, A Syrian Love Story follows one family’s fruitless struggle to retain normality amid the never-ending turmoil of their lives. It’s a tragic portrait of a disintegrating marriage which mirrors the fate of its characters’ home country.

Almost Bergmanesque in its bleakness, the film has been made with such intense love and care that it is impossible not to share in its subjects’ emotions, or in their ardent desire for justice for friends and family back home.

An awesomely powerful and moving tale, ASLS is well deserving of its top prize win at Sheffield Doc Fest, and proves McAllister is a filmmaker who demands our greatest respect. 

RATING: 5/5

INFORMATION

DIRECTOR: Sean McAllister

WRITERS: Sean McAllister

SYNOPSIS: Filmed over 5 years, A Syrian Love Story charts an incredible odyssey to political freedom. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams and despair: for the revolution, their homeland and each other.