Oscars: Syria Selects Doc ‘The Other Side of the Sun’ for International Feature Race, Marking First Entry Since Fall of Assad Regime

Tawfik Sabouni’s documentary “The Other Side of the Sun,” which world premiered as part of the Panorama section of this year’s Berlinale, has been chosen to represent Syria in the best international feature film category of the 2027 Academy Awards. It marks the country’s first Oscar candidate since the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime in December 2024.

Meanwhile, Andana Films — which handles worldwide sales to “The Other Side of the Sun” — also announced that New York-based Icarus Films has acquired U.S. rights to the film.

In “The Other Side of the Sun,” the director returns to the Syrian capital of Damascus in the immediate aftermath of the Assad regime’s collapse. There, he meets four fellow former detainees of the notorious Saidnaya prison. Through reenactments inside the prison itself, the documentary “turns memory into testimony, revealing resilience and an unbroken will to survive,” according to Andana’s promotional materials.

The choice of “The Other Side of the Sun” was announced by Syria’s General Organization for Cinema and marks the first selection made by Syria’s newly formed committee that is accredited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), “underscoring a new chapter in the country’s participation in the international awards landscape,” according to an Andana statement.

“The selection of ‘The Other Side of the Sun’ comes within a distinctive cinematic and humanitarian context,” the org said in the statement. “The film explores the experience of imprisonment in Saydnaya Prison, one of the most prominent detention sites associated with Syria’s recent history and collective memory during the previous decades of rule. It does so through the experience of director Tawfik Sabouni, who was previously imprisoned there, alongside four other survivors of detention.”

Commented Sabouni: “I am deeply happy and moved by this selection. This moment is the culmination of years of hard work, years during which I carried this film on my own, despite the doubts, the obstacles and the weight of such a responsibility. To see this project come to fruition today and find its place on such a stage is an immense personal and collective victory. But beyond the artistic journey, the true significance of this selection lies in the voice it gives to those whom others have sought to silence. The stories of the men and women who lost their lives in the prisons of the Assad regime will never be forgotten. Their memory, their suffering and their dignity will be forever etched in our minds and presented to the eyes of the world. It is to them, above all, that this selection belongs.”

“The Other Side of the Sun,” following its well-received Berlinale premiere, went on to screen at several international festivals and scored prizes at the Amman International Film Festival in Jordan.

The doc is produced by France’s Dérives, Habilis Productions and Clin d’Oeil Films.

The shortlist for the 2027 Oscar nominations will be announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Dec. 15, with the final selection revealed on Jan. 21. The 99th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place on March 14 in Los Angeles.