Director’s Statement

“Have a Nice Dog!” is a psychological drama presented in the format of a short animated film, about a man who lives in what would be considered a relatively safe city while its surroundings have become battle zones. He has not been able to find any way to escape his country, and so attempts to continue a 'normal' life in the middle of the war.

The film is based on personal experience as well as a compilation of views by others who were witnessing first-hand the situation in Damascus. It was there in this city that I had been living during the first two years of the revolution and war, a city where there exists a surrealistic contrast between an act or semblance of life, and the battles that are seen and heard just in the nearby countryside. Every little detail in everyday life was very important to me during this time, because there was always the possibility that I might die or flee in the next moment.

When I met someone, this one thought came to me: this could be the last time I see him. The permanent fear is suppressed by most people, because life must go on. An animal, however, does not hide its feelings. Like the dog that lived with my parents. My mom called him "Baroud" - "gunpowder". We lived in a safe district, but the helicopters and military jets flew over our house every day and bombed the surrounding areas. It was constantly loud.

Baroud was always scared. That dog and Damascus were formative. Just two or three kilometers away, people are bombing their homes, while at the same moment in Damascus, you can be sitting in a café. A surreal situation.

I visited Damascus for the last time in September 2013. On this trip, with the now ever constant sounds of war; explosions always in the distance, yet sometimes so close, I found that everybody there, everything, the entire city, now had Baroud’s features. I discovered that almost every person I knew had left the country.

Through all of these strange and new experiences it became somehow necessary for me to make this film, to present the situation in Syria, to take a precise look into psychological and emotional forms exhibited by a human constantly exposed. In the past decade there was a huge wave of film productions about Syria, but most of them were documentaries and we can really notice very successful films among them and in different visual types and creative forms of storytelling.

But at the same time, there were very few experiences that could make their own artistic way regardless of the documentation task, and especially in animation.

So I think that “Have a Nice Dog!” could be an additional visual document, which deals with the psychological side of the war situation and shows the Syrian theme from a new perspective.

“Have a Nice Dog!” is not only meant to be a new visual approach to the Syrian topic, but I also wanted to draw attention to the freedom of movement, which should be a basic human right. But the fact is, moving and changing places for millions of people around the world is a dream or a barely achievable life goal.

Millions of people are living for decades in a politically enforced quarantine-like situation. We can at least think about these people and not forget them.