Of Fathers and Sons - Screening

Synopsis

Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses primarily on the children, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up with a father whose only dream is to establish an Islamic caliphate. Osama (13) and his brother Ayman (12) both love and admire their father and obey his words, but while Osama seems content to follow the path of Jihad, Ayman wants to go back to school. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for World Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, Of Fathers and Sons is a work of unparalleled intimacy that captures the chilling moment when childhood dies and jihadism is born.

Talal Derki is a Syrian director, producer, and screenwriter of Kurdish descent. He studied film directing at Stavrako High Institute of Cinematographic Art and Television in Athens, graduating in 2003. He won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize in 2014 and 2018 for his feature documentaries Return to Homs and Of Fathers and Sons respectively. Derki also received an Academy Award nomination for Of Fathers and Sons in 2019. He currently resides in Berlin, Germany.