For its 26^th edition, the Montreal International Documentary Festival returns with a new territorial Focus. This year, we look toward Syria through Bidayyat. This program will consist of five screenings, three panels and a Masterclass.

Bidayyat is a Beirut-based Syrian production hub founded in the early days of the Syrian revolution. It was established with the intention of training young people in a tradition of Syrian and regional experimental documentary in order to tell the stories of ordinary lives in Syria during a time of revolution and war. Bidayyat has mentored dozens of young media activists, filmmakers, and writers, helping them produce over 50 shorts, 8 internationally acclaimed feature documentaries, and more than 100 online publications.

As Bidayyat now shifts its perspective from revolutionary production hub to revolutionary archive, Focus Bidayyat: New Beginnings spotlights innovative and award-winning films produced by, or in conversation with, Bidayyat. These creative documentaries pioneered new cinematic languages, responding to the rapid proliferation of affordable digital cameras and cellphone video used by Syrian citizens to document the reality and legitimacy of their revolt. They bear witness to the transformation of the lives of millions of Syrians by revolution and war.

Presented in collaboration with World Records, the critical journal of nonfiction media, this year’s Focus highlights many of the concerns and challenges that drive the cinema of Bidayyat: asserting the legitimacy of Syria’s revolutionary revolt; expanding the categories of director and auteur for young filmmakers and writers working on new terms; justly representing the scale of the unfolding catastrophe in Syria with dignity; documenting and preserving private histories and connections between family members and communities as Syrians were forced into exile; and collaborating across generational and political lines in the service of a revolutionary and dissident cinema.

This series is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and McGill University’s Critical Media Lab.