Neighbours

Sero is a Kurdish boy of six. He lives in a small village on the Syrian Turkish border. The years are the early eighties. That year Sero starts school for the first time. The school teaches in Arabic. The teacher has been sent by the Baathist administration. Speaking Kurdish in class is forbidden. The children are made to learn lines praising the president. There are lines condemning the declared enemies as well. The small world Sero knew begins to change from there. The film tells it through the boy’s eyes. There is humour in it and there is harshness. Mano Khalil drew the story from his own childhood. He grew up in that same border region. Jay Abdo and Mazen Al Natour appear in the hundred and twenty four minute film, a Swiss production Mano Khalil finished in 2022.