Where the Jasmine Always Blooms

A dimly lit, scarcely furnished flat, the hissing and buzzing of an open microphone. What follows is an argument in Arabic between mother and son. She complains about his lethargy. He sees no point in school while the country is at war. At last, the boy sets out through the busy streets of his neighbourhood which is a chaotic patchwork of everyday life and the debris of war.

Using 3D graphics software, Husein Bastouni reconstructs from his personal memories the situation in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in the south of Damascus when the area found itself between the frontlines in the Syrian war. Visually and acoustically – indeed, almost olfactorily – his film draws you into this world from the first second with terrifying immediacy, and yet poetically. In a moment of shock, the rhythm slows down, the images become sparser, but the protagonist’s reflections become crystal clear. In the silence of thought, the eye glides like a deep-sea diver through a sunken city and a lost home.