Wow! We are honored to tell you that Greetings from Aleppo, the new film by Issa Touma, Thomas Vroege and Floor van der Meulen, will have its world première at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). Greetings from Aleppo will be screened four times during the festival.

Greetings from Aleppo: a homage to the resilience of the Aleppian
Since 2014, photographer Issa Touma travels back to his hometown Aleppo on a regular basis. For more than two years he captured everyday encounters with fellow citizens of Aleppo, a city torn apart by war. Touma returns to clear an unexploded bomb from his parents’ apartment and to visit artist friends. Getting to and living in Aleppo is getting harder every day. On 18 December, Touma’s house was looted and destroyed. Greetings from Aleppo is an homage to the resilience of the people who try – sometimes to an absurd level – to continue to live the lives they led before the war.

Screening dates IFFR
All screenings are open to the public, you can purchase tickets at the IFFR-website.

• 26 Jan 2017, 17:00 (Avant-premières)
• 31 Jan 2017 12:00 (followed by the film Als Paul über das Meer kam)
• 1 Feb 2017, 17:00 (followed by the film Als Paul über das Meer kam)
• 4 Feb 2017, 11:45 (followed by the film Als Paul über das Meer kam)
  

IFFR is…
IFFR is one of the largest audience and industry-driven film festivals in the world. During twelve festival days, hundreds of filmmakers and other artists present their work to a large audience (305.000 admissions in 2016) and 2.538 film professionals. The festival’s focus is on recent work by talented new filmmakers and offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature films, short films and media art.

Succesful prequel: 9 Days – From My Window in Aleppo
Greetings from Aleppo can be seen as a follow-up to 9 Days – From My Windows in Aleppo, in which Touma – filming from the window of his apartment – depicts how in 2012 the revolution was stolen by the jihadis (his street had become front line). To realize this documentary, Touma worked together with the Dutch film makers Thomas Vroege and Floor van der Meulen. 9 Days has been shown at more than 60 festivals worldwide, received the Short Film Award of the British Film Institute as well as the European Film Award for short movies in December 2016.