Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege

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Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege

2021

1h 29m

Documentary

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11 Reviews

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Fewer than 50 Ratings

The district of Yarmouk (Damascus, Syria) sheltered the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 to 2018. When the Syrian revolution broke out, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad saw Yarmouk as a refuge of rebels and resistance and set up a siege from 2013 on. Gradually deprived of food, medicine and electricity, Yarmouk was cut off from the rest of the world. Abdallah Al-Khatib was born in Yarmouk and lived there until his expulsion by Daesh in 2015. Between 2011 and 2015, he and his friends documented the daily life of the besieged inhabitants, who decided to face bombing, displacement and hunger with rallying, study, music, love and joy. Hundreds of lives were irredeemably transformed by war and siege -- from Abdallah's mother, who turned into a nurse taking care of the elderly at the camp, to the fiercest activists whose passion for Palestine got gradually undermined by hunger...

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

It is a record of the past, but an almost unbearable warning of agony yet to come.

Rated: 4/5

Oct 26, 2023

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Namrata Joshi

National Herald (India)

Little Palestine is a devastating account of people humiliated, homeless and hungry beyond imagination.

Jul 21, 2021

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Sophie Monks Kaufman

Little White Lies

There is something about Al-Khatib and the people of Yarmouk that transmutes the very best as well as the very worst aspects of humanity.

Jul 20, 2021

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Joshua Polanski

Boston Hassle

Little Palestine is ... a testament to the power of digital cinema.

Jul 16, 2024

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

It's a strikingly immediate portrait of extreme, long-term deprivation, as well as courage under impossible circumstances.

Nov 11, 2022

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Panos Kotzathanasis

Asian Movie Pulse

"Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege" fulfills one of the main purposes of the medium, something that adds even more to its undisputed quality.

Rated: 7/10

Dec 26, 2021

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Abdallah Al-Khatib

Director

Abdallah Al-Khatib

Screenwriter

Mohammad Ali Atassi

Producer

Jean-Laurent Csinidis

Producer

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Synopsis

The district of Yarmouk (Damascus, Syria) sheltered the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 to 2018. When the Syrian revolution broke out, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad saw Yarmouk as a refuge of rebels and resistance and set up a siege from 2013 on. Gradually deprived of food, medicine and electricity, Yarmouk was cut off from the rest of the world. Abdallah Al-Khatib was born in Yarmouk and lived there until his expulsion by Daesh in 2015. Between 2011 and 2015, he and his friends documented the daily life of the besieged inhabitants, who decided to face bombing, displacement and hunger with rallying, study, music, love and joy. Hundreds of lives were irredeemably transformed by war and siege -- from Abdallah's mother, who turned into a nurse taking care of the elderly at the camp, to the fiercest activists whose passion for Palestine got gradually undermined by hunger...

Director: Abdallah Al-Khatib
Producer: Mohammad Ali Atassi, Jean-Laurent Csinidis
Screenwriter: Abdallah Al-Khatib
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: Arabic
Runtime: 1h 29m