Screening of Queens of Syria to take place at St Johns

The film Queens of Syria, a modern retelling by victims of the Syrian civil war of the Ancient Greek play The Trojan Women, is to be shown at the Old Divinity School, St John’s College, to support Syrian refugees.

The documentary Queens of Syria, performed by an all-female cast of Syrian refugees, follows a theatre project first staged in Amman, Jordan, in 2013, to present a new version of Euripides’s anti-war tragedy, The Trojan Women. The film, made by award-winning documentary maker Yasmin Fredda, follows a group of Syrian refugee women who reinterpreted the play to talk about their own experiences.

This film is an opportunity for audiences to hear first-hand about the harsh realities of life as a refugee, and is a life-changing experience for the refugees to have their voices heard.

Fifty Syrian women, who were exiled from their homes in Syria and became refuges in Jordan, were brought together for the theatre project to reinterpret the Ancient Greek play which tells about the plight of women in war. Yasmin Fredda spent seven weeks in the rehearsal room with the women – who had never acted or been in a theatre before – to document the whole process, from the point when the women came together for rehearsals to when the play was actually staged.

The women were given the script by the director, Omar Abusaada, and although slightly apprehensive and nervous at first, they soon started to share ideas about what it would look like, inspired by the themes and characters in the play. They weaved in their own powerful stories of war and exile, overcoming personal obstacles along the way. For these refugee women who had fled their homeland, to meet others in the same situation and to realise that they were not alone, and to feel that they have a purpose, was a motivating and inspiring experience. In the documentary, Fedda shows the emotional moments when the women first share their personal experiences with the group, and shows the women telling their individual, powerful stories on stage under a spotlight. “I have a scream I have to let out – I want the world to hear it,” says Suad, a young Syrian refugee. “These things are real and exist. It’s not just in Troy. This has happened for real. It’s happened to us.” Maha says.

Queens of Syria is being screened in the Main Lecture Theatre, Old Divinity School, St John’s College, on Wednesday 8 June from 7-9pm, and the event also includes a panel discussion; tickets are £5 and money from ticket sales will be donated directly to the project. Everyone is welcome. The stage show Queens of Syria will also be coming to the UK from 5-24 July for a three-week run around theatres where footage from the documentary is fused with the stage play for the first time. Read more about the UK tour on the Developing Artists website.