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Raghda

The Mother Fighter

Im so sorry to say that Raghda from my film A Syrian Love Story has passed away today. She’d been in hospital having cancer treatment and just come home to family and had a totally unrelated aortic rupture last night. A massive shock to all her family and friends who are broken. She had recently posted about having fought Assad’s torturers in her time in Syria’s prison and had fought the cancer too. She was a fighter till the end. The ‘Mother fighter’ as Nadine Shah wrote in the song that celebrates her life.

2016 BAFTA Nomination

A Syrian Love Story has been nominated for ‘Outstanding Debut’ at the EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) to be held on Sunday 14 February at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. The ceremony will be hosted by Stephen Fry and will be broadcast exclusively on BBC One and BBC One HD, preceded by a red carpet show on BBC Three. The ceremony is also broadcast in all major territories around the world.

See the full BAFTA nomination list.

3rd Best UK Film 2015

The Guardian: The 50 best films of 2015 in the UK – No 3: A Syrian Love Story

Continuing our countdown of the best movies released in the UK this year, we applaud the heartbreaking story of a couple whose relationship disintegrates as they flee the horrors of Syria

The tragic urgency of Sean McAllister’s superlative documentary A Syrian Love Story has been renewed by events, now that the British Parliament has given the go-ahead for RAF Tornadoes to join bombing raids on Isis positions in Syria. How many refugees will be created by this? Will the UK be liable to take in more refugees in proportion to our participation in bombing? This is the new political context for McAllister’s uniquely powerful film.

See the full article by Peter Bradshaw on The Guardian website

DIFF 2015

Cinema Without Borders

Dubai International Film Festival 2015

*This video is in Arabic… The interview with Sean McAllister begins at approx 9:45mins

الحلقه 4 برنامج سينما بلا حدود – مهرجان دبي السينمائي 2015 (( تغطية قروب الريم الفني ))برنامج سينما بلا حدودمهرجان دبي السينمائي 2015 (( تغطية قروب الريم الفني ))اعداد عصام بغداديتقديمطلال الكاسبمونتاجفواز بسوميالرفع على اليوتيوب والاشراف عبدالله التميمياخراجطلال الكاسب

City Times

Directors Matt Brown, Sean McAllister talk films

So what makes a story good enough to leave the pages of a book, to take the conversations of ordinary people from reality to film? We spoke to the two directors to get their insights on the process of filmmaking.

Matt Brown is the director of The Man Who Knew Infinity starring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons. The film tells the real story of mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. From living in poverty in Madras, India, he earns admittance to Cambridge University during WWI where he becomes a pioneer in mathematical theories with the guidance of his professor, G.H. Hardy. The story analyses relationship between Ramanujan and Hardy and their different viewpoints of the world.

Sean McAllister is a documentary film maker whose latest film A Syrian Love Story has been getting much acclaim. Filmed over 5 years, the story charts the compelling relationship of Ragahd and Amir who met in prison and fell in love. Sean guides the viewers through their story as the Syrian revolution is on the brink of eruption while the family escapes to Europe and their marriage, family and love is tested to its limits.

See the full article on the City Times website

The National

Labour of love: Director Sean McAllister reveals heartache behind A Syrian Love Story

In 2009, British filmmaker Sean McAllister planned to shoot a documentary about revolutionary stirrings in Syria, at a time before most his countrymen had heard of – or cared about – what was happening in Damascus.

But after six years of filming, what he ended up with was A Syrian Love Story, a candid record of the experiences of a couple and their children as the civil war erupted and they became refugees in Europe. The couple, Amer Daoud and Raghda Hassan, at first are very much in love but are slowly torn apart as they are haunted by memories from a homeland they can’t forget.

Read the full article on the www.thenational.ae website

Outlook

Syria: A Portrait of a Marriage

“We bring you the turbulent story of two political activists in Syria. They fell in love in prison, married and had children. But living under war and repression eventually tore their marriage apart. They are the subject of a new film by the award-winning British documentary maker Sean McAllister. He has been making films about the Arab world for over 20 years. In 2009 – two years before the start of the uprising in Syria – he went to Damascus to find subjects for a new project.”

Listen to Sean and Amer discussing the background to and filming of A Syrian Love Story on BBC World Service, Outlook – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p032r306