Directors: Marya Zarif and André Kadi
A child setting out on new adventures is the bedrock of stories for young people and new animation Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo which has its UK premiere at the SAFAR Film Festival 2023 is a charming 70-minute tale full of mythical stories and cultural navigation that inspires the young protagonist when she has to escape her perfect life. Beautifully told and exploring a range of complex emotions, Marya Zarif and André Kadi’s film is a child’s-eye view of a troubled adult world.
Cared for by her grandparents and devoted father, Dounia (Rachaf Ataya) loves her family and has several happy years at the heart of a household that includes her traditional grandmother teaching her recipes and sharing stories. But when her father is unexpectedly taken on the night of her birthday, Dounia’s settled life begins to change and as a year passes without news of her father, the coming war forces her family to flee to a new life.
Zarif and Kadi’s creation of Aleppo’s busy market streets and friendly people is beautiful, a vibrant society reveling in its love of food, bringing the family together in celebration and visiting stalls to haggle for the right ingredients, a place where the generations come together. But there is a serious purpose to Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo, introducing its young audience to the experience of war and the vital stories that support identity and create connections within communities.
The family experience power cuts and hear shells burst over the town at night. Zarif and Kadi slowly strip away the joyful simplicity of Dounia’s life, introducing rubble-strewn streetscapes, checkpoints manned by soldiers with guns and tanks, all of which increases the feeling of danger and disconnection from the life she has lived to date. The horrors are sometimes stark including a beheaded bird and a lame cat but the film successfully creates emotional investment in the family and the pressure to abandon their once happy home with only a handful of magical seeds that Dounia keeps to hand for protection.
Much like Flight, an animation screened at the Bridge Theatre, Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo teaches viewers about the perilous journey of refugees and the many challenges that being forced from your home can bring. But this is not an earnest story, there is real charm in the characterisation – heroes and villains – that makes this a family to root for, good people affected by circumstances beyond their control who the audience is able to follow every step of the way.
The connection between comfort storytelling about the gods of the past and the physical safety that they provide in supporting the journey of Dounia’s family is well released as a magical connection in the film, as is the management of the large-scale context of conflict and the personal effects on the lives of the refugees eating sandwiches at the bus stop or playing a guess the recipe game with ingredients to pass the time, all of which create a nice balance in the film preventing it from becoming either unremittingly bleak or overly saccharine.
The humanity of Zarif and Kadi’s film is its strength, and across the 70-minute running time the good-humoured and comedy characters as well as the scale of their mission is captivating, making Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo a meaningful and enchanting cinema experience.
Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo is screening at the SAFAR Film Festival 2023.
The Reviews Hub Score:
Meaningful and enchanting
