‘Queens of Syria’, a film directed by Yasmin Fedda which had its UK premiere in Glasgow in February, seeks to redress the silencing of the experiences of Syrian women who have lived through the continuing war in their country. In doing so, it also reveals the deeper universals of war that underpin but are frequently obscured by media headlines and graphic ISIS videos – the deep ache of loss for the homeland, and the exhausting task of rebuilding a life after you have watched your homeland burn.
The film follows the rehearsals and performance, by a group of Syrian refugee women now living in Amman, of Euripides’ ‘The Trojan Women.' Produced in 415 BC during the Peloponnesian War, the play's themes of loss, dislocation, and the pain felt by women as war rips through their lives are made hauntingly universal by the rehearsals and the innovative stage production by the women in Amman in late 2013. The chorus of women acting the lines from the Greek text are interspersed with monologues from their experiences in contemporary Syria, but the tones and themes are so closely linked that it is hard to tell which lines are from Euripides and which are from the lives of women who had fled the Syrian conflict.
Photo by Itab Azzam, via 'Queens of Syria'
