Rosh Abdelfatah
Rosh Abdelfatah is a Kurdish-Syrian artist, filmmaker, and the artistic director of the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam. He graduated from the St. Joost Academy in Breda in 2006. Currently, he creates freelance productions for various Arabic TV stations and works as an independent artist in both the Netherlands and the Middle East. "As an individual, you have little control over your environment. Reality forms while you watch helplessly. As an artist and filmmaker, I search for images that allow me to grasp time. In my work, I seek moments of support—anchors in a deteriorating, changing environment. The search for what is disappearing creates visual benchmarks that, when done well, convey both pain and comfort." – Rosh Abdelfatah
Marieke van der Lippe, Rosh Abdelfatah
For the Syrian refugee, life in Rotterdam was not chosen but determined by fate. Alienated from their own culture and background, they reside in a city where everything is different.
Music, rituals, the pure perception of a child, and the poetry of the Syrian poet Adnan Alaoda make this sense of displacement tangible.
