Neighbours

In a Syrian border village in the early 1980s, little Sero starts school for the first time. A new teacher has arrived to spread Ba’ath Party Arab nationalism and suppress any feelings of Kurdish cultural identity in his students. He bans the Kurdish language with his baton, orders the worship of Assad and preaches hatred of the Jews, the Zionist arch-enemies. The lessons confuse Sero as his longtime and beloved neighbours are a Jewish family: Sero and his uncle help the old couple and their spinster daughter, Hannah, out on every Shabbat. With a fine sense of humour and satire, director Mano Khalil, inspired by his own experiences, paints a picture of a childhood that also finds light moments under the Assad dictatorship.