Syria’s General Directorate of Cinema has selected Tawfiq Sabouni’s documentary ‘The Other Side of the Sun’ as the country’s official entry in the competition for the Best International Feature Film award at the 99th Academy Awards. It is the first selection announced by Syria’s newly formed Oscar committee, officially accredited by the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The film documents survivors of Saydnaya Prison
The film examines the harsh experiences of several survivors of detention in Saydnaya Prison, which Syrians remember as one of the most brutal prisons operated by the Baath regime and which Amnesty International previously described as a ‘human slaughterhouse’. Sabouni, who was himself detained in Saydnaya, accompanies four survivors on a return journey to the prison after it was closed following the overthrow of the Assad regime.
The participants recall their experiences of detention and retrace the locations and experiences that shaped their years in captivity, in a documentary treatment combining first-hand testimonies with dramatisation techniques. The director began work on the project in 2022 in studios in Belgium, where spaces replicating Saydnaya’s cells and corridors were built in preparation for filming.
Filming moves from Belgium to the prison
But preparations were halted after the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024, prompting Sabouni and his team to move the project to the real location and film inside the prison. The film’s international journey began at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Berlinale, where it had its world premiere in the Documentary Panorama section.
It later screened at the Amman International Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize and the International Federation of Film Critics award, as well as the Audience Award in the Arab Documentary Competition. In terms of commercial distribution, New York-based Icarus Films acquired the film’s theatrical distribution rights in the United States.
The company bought the rights from French sales agent Andana Films, ahead of the documentary’s release in US cinemas in the coming months. The film is a co-production between several production companies in Belgium and France.
The Academy is scheduled to announce the 15-film shortlist for Best International Feature Film on 15 December, before unveiling the final list of five nominees on 21 January. The 99th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on 14 March 2027.
