| The Cave | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 1 Nomination | |
| Year | 2019 |
| Director | Feras Fayyad |
| Writer | Alisar Hasan, Feras Fayyad |
| Starring | Amani Ballour, Salim Namour |
| 92nd Academy Awards | |
The Cave is a 2019 Syrian-Danish documentary film directed by Feras Fayyad and written by Fayyad and Alisar Hasan. A companion piece to his 2017 film Last Men in Aleppo, the film profiles Amani Ballour, a female doctor in Ghouta who is operating a makeshift hospital nicknamed "the Cave" during the Syrian Civil War. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2019. In an interview, Fayyad said his purpose in making the film was to create documentary evidence that could be used to seek justice for innocent victims of the civil war. "The film should put people in an uncomfortable position to look through the terrible reality around us," he said.
Nominations
- Best Documentary Feature — Feras Fayyad, Kirstine Barfod, Sigrid Dyekjær
Plot[]
The film follows a dedicated team of female doctors who tirelessly treat casualties in an underground hospital while battling systemic sexism. Shot from 2016 to 2018, it belongs to the top rank of war films. It takes us to a subterranean landscape that feels akin to the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max (1979). With life too dangerous above ground, survivors create a network of secret tunnels under the city of Ghouta, near Damascus, for an underground hospital maintained by women doctors. In contrast to the many Syrian documentaries made from cellphone footage or shaky cameras, this film takes great care to visualize the landscape and its memorable occupants with artful cinematography. For anyone who feels jaded by Syria coverage, this work stands apart. The heart of the film is Dr. Amani, a young Syrian woman operating in unimaginable conditions with great humor and fortitude. When not tending to - many of whom are small children - she's forced to justify her work to chauvinistic men who insist that a woman should be at home fulfilling domestic duties, not running a hospital. The claustrophobia of Amani's workplace is mitigated by the high spirits of her crew, while occasional forays above ground temper relief from close quarters with harrowing scenes of a city reduced to rubble.
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