NEIGHBOURS

When a neighbourhood is destroyed: in a village on the Syrian-Turkish border in the early 1980s, the Kurdish boy Sero sees his little world shattered by warmongers. While Sero experiences his first year at school, nationalist despotism and violence are on the rise. And the repression does not spare Kurdish children. With the erection of a border fence and the emergence of absurd nationalist ideas, invisible borders also start running through the neighbourhood that will destroy the peaceful co-existence between Jews, Kurds and Arabs.

With keen insight and a fine sense of humour and satire, the Syrian-Kurdish director Mano Khalil creates the picture of a childhood that manages to find some lighter moments amid the indoctrinations of Assad’s dictatorship. The film is informed by his own childhood experiences and its touching story stretches from the beginnings of the conflict to Syria’s present tragedy.