WHERE THE JASMINE ALWAYS BLOOMS

In the lyrical 3D animation Where the Jasmine Always Blooms, director Husein Bastouni couches his personal, frightening recollections of the Palestinian refugee camp in the south of Damascus in a highly sensorial form. The narrator creates a point of orientation by piercingly describing how freedom of movement has become a crime: traumatised by losing his home, the abstractly-rendered protagonist dodges falling bombs and runs past different people and fates in expressive fashion, eventually plunging into the dark bottomless depths with the weight of the burden he carries. Winner of the Golden Hercules at Kasseler Dokfest, the film boldly leads the audience down into the nightmare of human existence – and back out of it again.

Tina Waldeck