Syria Series - The making of...

This is a project that we started the wrong way and ended up, through a lot of hard work and opening of minds, doing it the right way (or at least a vastly better way).



At the end of 2015, just before the Christmas holidays, we were approached to produce a video series for Mennonite Central Committee Ontario that on the surface, was fairly straightforward: to create a resource for sponsors of Syrian refugees to help them understand: 

1)Who are these refugees and why are they coming to Canada? 

2) What are the "nuts and bolts" of resettling a family in Canada?

3) How can we continue to support them after the initial year of sponsorship?

Piece of cake, right?

Our initial concept was instructional - a presenter speaking to the viewer, telling us about the war in Syria - the stats, the geography, etc. Also the culture - Syrian people are generally like this, the land is like this, and the history is like this.

We spent a lot of time researching the war, and Syrian culture, and put together a rough script outline. And then we reached out to Shamrose Syria, a local Syrian community group that was working around the clock to help facilitate newcomers to Waterloo Region and beyond. We were introduced to a young man who was instrumental in identifying and navigating some of the obstacles we faced.

Hsain: "Rhymes with insane."

Our challenges were legion, but the main ones were:

• contextualizing a complex refugee crisis with integrity, 
• portraying refugee stories with sensitivity (without access to actual refugees to speak to us on camera!), 
• painting a picture of a diverse culture that defies meaningless generalizations ("Family and food are important parts of Syrian culture")
• being informative without being dry or overlong

Hsain Al-Shihabi and his family's contribution to this project cannot be understated. They were willing and able actors whose powerful performances enabled us to portray the story of a composite character, "Tareq" and his family. The experiences of Tareq and his family were gleaned from numerous first-hand accounts of Syrian refugees collected from news articles, videos, and from interviews that Hsain and his mother, Helen, conducted with newly arrived Syrians.

They spent several full weekends with us filming in sometimes less than ideal conditions including this full-on blizzard that roared for the entire day of exterior shooting:

Though Hsain and his family are NOT refugees themselves (they immigrated to Canada more than a decade ago), they channeled the newcomer experience with real heart it and gave the series a powerful and cinematic quality that elevated it beyond merely a point-by-point talking head series.

***

Another boon for us was the very supportive sponsor group and the incredibly gracious newcomer family that we followed for Part 2 and 3. Not only did they allow us to film them, but they welcomed us into their home with grace and generosity. The first time I met these people (Jon had previously met them at the airport on arrival day) was at their home - and they were not expecting us, due to some miscommunication. Even so, there was a delicious chicken and rice dinner with fatoush salad served to us within minutes!

Sponsor group breaks into spontaneous applause as they meet their family.

This whole experience, aside from being a very intense period work-wise, was one of learning and opening and new relationships. Even as we collected stories of welcome and heard our participants talking about the value of setting aside fear/stereotypes/prejudice/apathy, we learned to do those things ourselves, as filmmakers and as individuals. It was a true honour and life-changing process for us to work with these brave, generous, compassionate, gracious sponsors and newcomers.

Watch the series here:
Part 1: Leaving Syria
Part 2: Welcome to Canada
Part 3: A New Home

Power of Partnership - THIS is how refugee resettlement is done!

Six months ago, we were approached by Mennonite Central Committee Ontario to produce a short documentary following a private sponsorship group who were preparing to welcome a Syrian family to Waterloo Region.

We said yes without really knowing how we would do this - logistically, everything was still up in the air. Housing, furnishings, how many family members - and the timeline was nebulous. But the sponsoring group, led by Dan Herman, was resourceful and resilient and by the time they got the call to pick up their family on January 1st, the apartment was secured, furnished, and everything was in place.

On that day, and on every occasion since then, the Salkini family have been gracious, generous, and lovely people. I can't imagine the stress and anxiety they must have been feeling coming to a new country that is both geographically and culturally a world away from their home in Syria. Combining that with the open hearts of the sponsoring group have created a nourishing environment that will set up the Salkini family for success in their new home in Canada.

While this story of this particular group of people may seem like a best-case scenario (which it is!), from the stories we've heard from other sponsor groups, this is not a unique story. Time and again, we've heard from sponsors whose lives have been impacted powerfully and new relationships created.

Despite the sensationalized negativity in the media and especially in the comment sections on refugee-related media, seeing this story unfold gives us hope that Canadians are compassionate, generous people who are willing to step up to help those in need.

Meanwhile... PIT makes Toronto Premiere!

It's been a busy time for us at Rosco with extremely rewarding finishes to a number of projects.

One of these, is the Toronto premiere of our short film PIT which we wrote, shot, and edited in a span of two months last year!

I have to say, Canadian Film Festival is a new favourite! Celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, CFF is a vibrant festival celebrating independent Canadian films of a very high caliber. We were honoured to open the Home Grown Shorts program this year.

Proudest filmmaker moment to date: seeing my name in the credits of Rosco Films' "PIT" during Canadian Film Fest...
Posted by Katie Parkes on Sunday, April 3, 2016

We went down with Katie Parkes (1st AD) and our star Lindsay Stewart to represent the PIT crew and we had a great time. Festival director Bern Euler made us feel welcome and people were gushing to Lindsay afterward about his performance, which is both understated and spectacular, if we may say so ourselves.

One thing I noted watching all the other shorts in the program was that every one of them had some kind of funding - there were a lot of sponsors, Bell Media, Whites International, etc who helped produce their films. We, on the other hand, made PIT for, I think it was $500 out of pocket. Such an interesting difference, and yet our production was equal to those with $50,000 budgets. Of course, I would've loved a budget so that we could pay our crew but it reminded me that budget doesn't necessarily equal a good film.

We had a ton of great people working on this short and we would be remiss if we didn't recognize them all so watch this and clap your hands, wherever you are:

PIT Crew from Jonathan Steckley on Vimeo.