‘Black Flour’ Tackles French Occupation in Syria

Syrian director Ghassan Shmeit is currently screening his latest film al Tahin al Aswad (The Black Flour) at the Syrian theaters.  

Shmeit told the daily Syria Times that the film deals with the post independence period and the changes that took place in the Syrian society following independence. It depicts the changes in human relations that took place in the rural society.  

He added that the film does not only record events in a historical mould, but it reflects certain impressions about that period, namely the nostalgic feelings to the past.  

The film also tackles the destiny of some people living in the Syrian countryside at the end of the 1940s. It portrays poor people who are capable of giving more than the rich and the wide gap between the rich and the poor was created by the colonial forces before leaving the country.  

The film also shows the domination of the feudal and the bourgeois systems and the suffering of people as a result of the domination of these classes.  

Shmeit, the director and the writer of the film, casts light on the beginning of the awareness of people towards the necessity of eliminating these classes which were created by the French occupation forces before leaving the country to preserve their interests in the country through other means.  

Costarring in the film are Abdel Rahman Abul Qassem and other Syrian actors and actresses – Albawaba.com