''The Return to Homs'' (; ) is a 2013 Syrian-German

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

written and directed by

Talal Derki Talal Derki (Arabic language, Arabic: طلال ديركي ''Ṭālāl Dīrkī'') is a Syrian Kurdish director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Damascus and of Kurdish descent, Derki studied film directing in Athens at , graduation in 2003. He w ...

. It is produced by Orwa Nyrabia and Hans Robert Eisenhauer while Diana El Jeiroudi served as the associate producer. The film premiered in-competition at the 2013

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Description IDFA is an independent, international meeting place for audiences ...

on November 20, 2013, as the opening film of the festival. The film also premiered in-competition in the ''World Cinema Documentary Competition'' at

2014 Sundance Film Festival The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Salt Lake City, Ogden, Utah, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opene ...

on January 20, 2014. It won the ''Grand Jury Prize'' award at the festival. After its premiere at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, Journeyman Pictures acquired the worldwide distribution rights of the film. The film's TV rights has been previously sold to ARTE for France and Germany,

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

for Japan, RTS for Switzerland, SVT for Sweden, and Radio Canada. It also served as the closing film at 2014 ''Human Rights Film Festival'' on March 28, 2014.

Synopsis

In the middle of Syrian Civil War, the film follows, 19-year-old national football team goalkeeper, Abdul Baset al-Sarout and 24-year-old Ossama, his media activist and journalist friend, their daily life in the city of

Homs Homs ( ; ), known in pre-Islamic times as Emesa ( ; ), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level, above sea level and is located north of Damascus. Located on the Orontes River, Homs is ...

which has become a bombed-out ghost town by government forces. Their homes, lives and dreams destroyed and in order to gain freedom, they are forced to change course Baset and Ossama turned from peaceful protesters into rebel insurgents.

Reception

''The Return to Homs'' received mostly positive reviews upon its premiere at the

. Peter Debruge of Variety, said in his review that "Talal Derki’s “Return to Homs” represents a remarkable achievement in immersive conflict-zone filmmaking, fearlessly taking auds to the front lines of the Syrian civil war and embedding them alongside soccer star turned resistance leader Abdul Baset al-Sarout, a charismatic nonviolent protester pushed into taking up arms against the oppressive regime." Neil Young in his review for ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' called the film "An unflinching, rousing piece of civil-war reportage, literally dispatched from the conflict's front lines." Eric Kohn from Indiewire praised the film by saying that ""Return to Homs" reveals a far more frenzied, visceral struggle that a handful of driven warriors continue to endure at all costs. With its climactic freeze frame, Derki captures the men's uneasy combination of desperation and triumph in a single image: With nowhere left to go, they still push ahead." While, Dan Fienberg of ''

HitFix HitFix, or HitFix.com, was an entertainment news website that launched in December 2008 specializing in breaking entertainment news, insider information, and reviews and critiques of film, music, and television. In mid-2010 HitFix crossed the 1,00 ...

'' grade the film B+ and said that "There are shades of Kubrick to the long, uninterrupted shots that take us through bombed out buildings, a labyrinth of ruins that still have poignant ties to our heroes."

Accolades

References

External links

Official Site
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Return to Homs
on Journeyman Pictures {{DEFAULTSORT:Return To Homs, The 2013 films Sundance Film Festival award–winning films 2013 documentary films German documentary films Syrian documentary films Documentary films about human rights Documentary films about the Syrian civil war Homs in the Syrian civil war 2010s German films