Damascus Dreams – Olivier Pierre

I knew nothing about Émilie Serri when I discovered Damascus Dreams, her first feature film. It immediately impressed me. We see, after an old home movie clip with her father, a beautiful travelling shot in a car showing a majestic, mysterious Canadian forest. “And Syria, how was it? How was it when you were young?” she asks her father. This is her story and the history of her country of origin, a quest for identity and cultural heritage.

With Syrian roots, Émilie Serri herself was born in Canada, and is a Montreal-based visual artist and filmmaker. Before she made Damascus Dreams, she directed numerous short films that were presented in international films festivals and art galleries across Canada. In a singular, poetic and remarkable way, she intertwines reality and myth, documentary and staged directed scenes, contemporary testimonies of refugees and family reminiscences, moving images and photographs, colour and black and white, video and 16mm, Montreal and Damascus. 

In her film Émilie Serri dreams of Damascus, and of better days. That’s all we can wish for her, for her homeland and for her cinema: a bright future. 

Written by Olivier Pierre