Award: Best Film – 5th edition of the Kobani International Film Festival 2024 (Taha Karimi Edition)

Film Synopsis:

The film begins with an incident that appears ordinary on the surface, yet gradually unfolds into a harsh confrontation between the individual and his social reality. After a child from a poor family suffers severe food poisoning that nearly takes his life, the father finds himself trapped in a painful moral dilemma: surrender his dignity to protect his family’s survival, or confront a system determined to bury the truth.

Through a restrained visual language and a realistic cinematic approach, the film transforms silence, confined spaces, and exhausted faces into central dramatic elements. Its slow-burning rhythm builds emotional tension gradually, presenting a human story about poverty, fragility, and dignity in the face of power and social abandonment.

About the Director:

Zaher Kusaibati is a Syrian director, producer, and sound designer born in Damascus in 1991. His cinematic approach is rooted in socially driven realism, where marginal lives and intimate human details become the foundation of the visual narrative.

He studied film directing at the Syrian Academy and worked for years in sound design, audio post-production, and independent filmmaking, developing a strong sensitivity toward cinematic rhythm and the emotional role of sound within visual storytelling.

Before moving into directing, he collaborated on several film productions as a sound editor and sound designer. In his debut short film Bitter Sweetness, Kusaibati presents a cinematic experience built on emotional realism, visual restraint, and psychological tension, within a language closely connected to contemporary social cinema.

Alongside his filmmaking career, he is the founder and manager of Art House for Artistic Production, while continuing to develop long-term cinematic and literary projects focused on human stories, marginalization, and contemporary social realities.