Toufan Fi Balad Al Baas

“Lake Assad” on the Euphrates in north-east Syria, thirty-three years after the first short of a filmmaker who admits to regretting his “youthful error”–his ode to the Euphrates dam, which was the pride of the ruling Baath party… The setting is El Machi village, where the inhabitants are Al Machis and even the well is called El Machi. An entity that summarises a country that the Baath party has been shaping for forty years. At the top of their voice, the schoolchildren recite their lessons on the Euphrates and hymns to the state’s glory. Rigid discourse and indoctrination clash with the memory of an old man who safeguards the history of the great river.