Sat, May 30 / 6 pm
Dir. Sophie Deraspe
2015, Canada, 85 min
Manitoba Premiere
French, English and Arabic w/subtitles
Montrealer Sandra Bagaria is having an erotic and intellectual online romance with Amina Arraf, a Syrian-American woman living in Damascus. As the Syrian uprising was being violently repressed, Arraf launched the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus, which quickly became a source for respected news media reports of on-the-ground stories of resistance. But when Arraf is abducted and Bagaria starts a campaign to free her, no one—not even the US State Department—can find a trace of her. A modern love story shapeshifts into an international thriller as journalists and activists hunt for the real Arraf through the virtual world. Identities and avatars proliferate, fiction is reported as fact and nothing can be taken as truth. Superb storytelling and cinematic style seamlessly blends with erotica, news footage of the uprisings and shots of an imaginary Arraf walking the streets of Damascus. A true masterpiece of hybrid documentary cinema.
– Lynne Fernie, Hot Docs
Presented in partnership with the Bell Media Best of Hot Docs
