COMME SI NOUS ATTRAPIONS UN COBRA

During the two years it took to produce the film – from early summer 2010 to that of 2012 – major upheavals occurred in the Middle East, especially in the two countries that the film focuses on, Egypt and Syria. It was hardly surprising that a film on the freedom of expression and its repression in these countries should be drawn into the wake of the turbulent events of the revolutions under way there. By questioning Egyptian and Syrian cartoonists about their experiences before and after these major historic movements against despotism, the film attempts to gauge the new- found freedom that will also guarantee our future and our right of expression, and preserve us from censorship. The Syrian writer and journalist Samar Yazbek provides us with her insight and impressions from Damascus in the months preceding the Syrian revolution until her exile in France five months later.