Berlin Film Festival: The Human Story Behind Tawfik Sabouni’s THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SUN

 

In The Other Side of the Sun (L'autre côté du soleil), director Tawfik Sabouni transforms one of Syria’s most feared symbols of repression into a space of memory, confrontation, and quiet resistance. Years after surviving detention in Saidnaya prison, a place synonymous with silence and disappearance, Sabouni returns not as a victim, but as a filmmaker determined to reclaim what violence sought to erase. Joined by four fellow survivors, he revisits the very corridors where their lives were once reduced to survival, using carefully staged re-enactments to express what words alone cannot hold.

Presented at the Berlinale, the film moves away from sensationalism, choosing instead a deeply human approach that foregrounds dignity, imagination, and resilience. As Sabouni explains in this conversation, the project was never about reopening wounds for spectacle, but about transforming personal memory into a shared cinematic language, one that allows trauma to be seen without being exploited. The prison itself becomes a character, a witness to gestures, silences, and fragments of humanity that persist despite systematic dehumanisation.

Through intimate collaboration with the survivors, the film bridges individual testimony and collective history, giving voice not only to those who returned, but also to the thousands who never did. In this interview, Sabouni reflects on trust, memory, and the responsibility of cinema in preserving stories that official narratives would rather leave buried.

AM: The film explores a place marked by history and pain. How did you approach representation without falling into sensationalism?
Tawfik Sabouni: First, it is important to recognize that this place is not dramatic material ready to be consumed, but a living memory filled with real wounds. Any attempt to beautify pain or amplify it for quick emotional effect would be a betrayal of the subject before even being an aesthetic choice.

Avoiding sensationalism is not about declarations of intent but about concrete and demanding decisions. My choices for this film were clear from the beginning: not to make a misery-driven film. This position guided me to move beyond suffering and instead highlight resistance, imagination, love, and hope.

AM: Why did you choose to bring survivors back to the very place where they were detained?
Tawfik Sabouni: I consider this place a character in its own right within the film. The work of memory is not only about recounting what happened in that prison, but also about ensuring that it is never forgotten. I wanted us to return to this experience in order to transmit it.

My return, as well as that of the survivors, brings realism and allows the audience to better see and understand what we lived through. Returning to the site reveals what was once hidden or invisible: bodily memory, gestures, silences. Being there activates memory in a direct and sensitive way and helps anchor the story in the present.

AM: How did you build trust with the participants so they could open up in front of the camera?
Tawfik Sabouni: Trust was not built during filming itself but long before. Before even taking out the camera, there was shared time, conversations without any filming objective, and a relationship that developed gradually.

What connected us was essential: we were all former detainees. I was not an outside observer collecting testimonies, but someone who had gone through a similar experience. I chose to share my own journey, not to take space, but to create an equal environment where dialogue moved in both directions. The film grew out of that bond. They knew I was not there to use their stories, but to resonate with our shared experiences, and that everyone remained free to speak or remain silent. Trust comes from time, reciprocity, and the fact that the camera was never more important than the relationship.

AM: In your view, what role can cinema play in transmitting traumatic stories within the Arab world?
Tawfik Sabouni: For me, cinema belongs to the people. It carries voices that are often silenced and gives them strength and visibility that they do not have in public space. Its role is to stay close to the street, to real lived experiences, and to bring these stories from everyday life to the screen without distorting them.

When these stories become films, they stop being only individual experiences and transform into collective memory. The film then becomes a living document that moves through time, resists forgetting, and reminds us of what happened even when official narratives try to erase it.

AM: Does presenting the film at the Berlinale, in an international context, change the way you want the story to be received?
Tawfik Sabouni: Presenting the film at the Berlinale gives the story much greater strength, because it allows it to reach an international audience and be placed within a broader context. From the beginning, I wanted to make a film that speaks to everyone, to Syrians, because this is part of their history, and to the rest of the world, because what happened also concerns a shared collective responsibility.

AM: What do you hope younger generations will take away from this film?
Tawfik Sabouni: I hope younger generations understand that history is not an abstract narrative, it is made of real lives, choices, and acts of resistance. I want them to see that even in the worst conditions there is creativity, imagination, love, and hope, and that human beings can survive and reinvent themselves.

But I also want them to take away a broader lesson: memory is an act of responsibility. To forget or ignore these stories is to allow injustice to repeat itself.

AM: After such a deeply personal project, how do you see the next step in your cinematic journey?
Tawfik Sabouni: My cinema remains deeply human and rooted in social and political realities, and I hope to continue on this path. I am currently preparing my second feature film, which this time will be a fiction project that also reflects the injustices experienced in exile.