26 minutes to watch hope drown and maybe swim back up.
We are all drops in the river of life that we flow through, and in the film we see the pain of some of these drops and their life experiences, and their struggle between the harsh circumstances that drag them down and frustrate them and the desire to be freed from the suffering and rise again or settle down due to the circumstances imposed by the necessities of life.
Acting
Non-professional cast brings devastating authenticity
Direction
Arsan squeezes epic scope into tight runtime
Cinematography
River metaphor that actually earns its poetry
Director
Ayham Arsan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in rural Syria during ongoing conflict; production had to navigate active war zones for locations.
The title's Arabic wordplay — 'qatara' means both 'drop' and 'to drip/lose hope' — collapses completely in translation.
SY
