DOX BOX Syria Global Day 2013

A Press Release

For the second consequent year, DOX BOX organizers announce that the festival will not be held as usual, around Syria, in a continuous protest to the ongoing massacre against the Syrian people. For the second year, DOX BOX, in partnership with many international organizations and festivals, organizes the “Syria Global Day 2013”, on the dates of the canceled festival in Syria, coinciding with the anniversary of the Syrian Revolution, March 15th – 18th.

In “Syria Global Day 2013”, which will be screened in theaters, squares, Tvs and online, the programmers of DOX BOX curated two sections, the first is a showcase of 6 short/medium films by new generation Syrian filmmakers, professional and amateur, from before and after March 2011, through which a different glance at the life in Syria is presented, with fresh eyes and angles which differ a lot from those of international mainstream media. DOX BOX selected the films it believed had a high sense of cinematic ambitioun and a unique voice of an Auteur.

The second section, entitled “Citizen with a Movie Camera”, is DOX BOX's tribute to Syrian Citizen-Filmmakers, who are changing the history of their country, showing outstanding bravery to express themselves and their society, their good and bad, their pain and their joy, through audio-viusal clips they film and publish on YouTube. DOX BOX programmers (who include some of the most highly acclaimed Syrian Revolution internet activists), have compiled six theatic screening sessions from YouTube videos, with the titles “In Search for Truth”, “Letters”, “Dialogue”, “Moments – Continuity”, “Leaked – An Auto-portrait”, “Stories”. These sessions will allow an opportunity to explore the Syrian citizen's experience searching for “citizenship” in a new reality that is extremely harsh, and to explore the very new Syrian approach to new media, which was only evoked by extreme necessity.

DOX BOX Syria Global Day 2013 will be held in theaters around the world, including Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Alexandria, Casablanca, Ramallah, in addition to cities in the US and Europe. Syria Global Day 2013 screenings will also be held in liberated Syrian towns, however, for safety considerations, these will not be announced before the end of the festival.

Syria Global Day will also have a TV screening side, in collaboration with ARTE and Al-Arabiya. In collaboration with IDFA, DokLeipzig, CPH:DOX and DocAlliance, it will also be made accessible globally, for free, on the internet.

DOX BOX International Documentary Film Festival was launched in 2008 in Damascus, Homs and Tartous, and was held until 2011. It became the Arab World's largest documentary-dedicated event, showcasing the best in documentary cinema, hosting some of the world's greatest masters, including Pennibaker, Gusman, Philibert and Amiralay. DOX BOX contributed to the development of documentary cinema in Syria and the region, through its DOX BOX CAMPUS, which trained over 60 filmmakers from around the Arab World.