Tawfik Sabouni’s documentary The Other Side Of The Sun has been submitted as Syria’s entry to the Academy Awards and is set for a US theatrical release through Icarus Films.
It marks the country’s first entry since fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was president of Syria from 2000 until being overthrown in December 2024.
It is also the first selection made by Syria’s newly formed Oscar committee, overseen by the country’s General Organisation for Cinema and accredited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
The film explores the experience of imprisonment in Syria’s notorious Saydnaya Prison, where director Sabouni was incarcerated. He returned to the prison, which was shut down on the day Assad was unseated, with four fellow survivors to retrace the places and experiences that shaped their years of detention.
The documentary, which blends testimony with reenactment, received its world premiere in the Panorama Documentary section of the Berlinale in February.
New York-based Icarus Films has acquired US rights to the film from French sales agent Andana Films and is set to give the film a theatrical release in the coming months.
“The selection of The Other Side Of The Sun comes within a distinctive cinematic and humanitarian context,” said a statement from the General Organisation for Cinema.
“The film explores the experience of imprisonment in Saydnaya Prison, one of the most prominent detention sites associated with Syria’s recent history and collective memory during the previous decades of rule. It does so through the experience of director Tawfik Sabouni, who was previously imprisoned there, alongside four other survivors of detention.”
Director Sabouni said of the selection: “This moment is the culmination of years of hard work, years during which I carried this film on my own, despite the doubts, the obstacles and the weight of such a responsibility.
“To see this project come to fruition today and find its place on such a stage is an immense personal and collective victory. But beyond the artistic journey, the true significance of this selection lies in the voice it gives to those whom others have sought to silence. The stories of the men and women who lost their lives in the prisons of the Assad regime will never be forgotten. Their memory, their suffering and their dignity will be forever etched in our minds and presented to the eyes of the world. It is to them, above all, that this selection belongs.”
Following its Berlinale premiere, the film went on to screen further festivals, winning both the jury award and Fipresci prize at Amman International Film Festival, alongside the audience award in the Arab Documentary Feature Competition.
The film is produced by Belgium’s Dérives, France’s Habilis Productions and Belgium’s Clin d’Oeil Films.
Syria has only previously submitted one film to the international feature film category of the Oscars: Sam Kadi’s documentary Little Ghandi in 2017, which did not make the shortlist.
AMPAS will reveal the 15 features on the best international feature film shortlist on December 15. The five nominees will be announced January 21. The 99th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 14.
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