If Only the Year Had 364 Days – Films

Estahbes

Almourad Aldeeb
Germany, Syria | 2026 | 77 min
World premiere
Language : Arabic
Subtitles : English, French

2013. Civil war rages and Almourad Aldeeb is imprisoned by the Syrian regime for several months before managing to flee to Germany. After the fall of the dictatorship, he returns to the scene of his torment. Like a silent cry, his emotionless voiceover recounts the horrors that he and his friends endured. A stark and terrifying foray into Assad’s prisons.

The war in Syria (2011-2024) produced – often on social media – some of the most horrific image montages the world has ever seen. Some, such as from the AbouNaddara collective (Of God and Dogs, VDR 2014) or Abdallah Al Khatib (Little Palestine, VDR 2021), to name just a few, have documented the blind spots of the conflict. The jails of the al-Assad dictatorship were among them, and filmmakers filming the “after” are beginning to address this issue. This is the case with Almourad Aldeeb in If Only the Year Had 364 Days. In long, static shots filmed on faded colour film, the director relates in a flat and, at times, hesitant voice, his personal experience – and that of his friends – of imprisonment, reaching for the words to express the immense suffering endured by an entire country. During this dive – as sober as it is terrifying – into the concentration camp system of the fallen regime, we feel the stagnation of time and the dead weight of silence, broken only by the echoes of torture. It is a film that silently screams among the ghosts still haunting these notorious places.

Emmanuel Chicon

If Only the Year Had 364 Days, 2026
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Waiting for the Bus, 2021
Wilhelms Bazar, 2020
The Plug, 2019
Taif, 2018