A poignant, Bermanesque close-up of two political refugee families. What does it mean to be the child of parents who met while in political lock-up? How do you defend your country if your life is in constant danger and you lose a friend a day? How do you preserve love and humanity above it all? The film, which just received the Sheffield Doc/Fest 2015 Grand Jury Award, is the essence of 400 hours of material that Scottish director Sean McAllister shot over the course of five years in Syria, Lebanon and France.

The Syrian civil war is viewed as the most-devastating conflict in modern history. Since the spring of 2011, when the protests against President Bashir al-Assad’s regime developed into a military conflict and later outright war, some 240 000 people, mainly civilians, have lost their lives. In accordance with UN estimates, by the end of the year the number of Syrian refugees could reach 4.27 million – almost half of whom are children who have lost relatives in the war.

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