This article is part of a dossier in partnership between SyriaUntold and openDemocracy's North Africa, West Asia page, exploring the emerging post-2011 Syrian cinema; its politics, production challenges, censorship, viewership, and where it may be heading next.
In his book Notes on the Cinématographe, French director Robert Bresson (1901-1999) says, "The future of cinema belongs to a line of young independent people who will spend their last penny filming their work, without allowing the materialistic routines of the profession to limit them."
The notes written by Bresson summarize a particular and unique vision of cinematography, of its structure and mechanism, and the power of the images inherent in the correlation between the concepts of space and time with the state of the cinematographers themselves, who monitor the process of forming the picture with their artistic perception. That is the broad spectrum of connotations and meanings that film can contain as dense layers, giving cinema its importance in the contemporary era.
