This film tells the story of the bond between Khuzama and her community, between the community and its region, its land, the Arab Mountain. Khuzama is Syrian. She is not religious, but belongs to the Druze community, which settled in the Suwayda region starting in the 18th century.

In this regard, she is a daughter of the mountain.

Over the past three centuries, the Druze mountain has resisted all those who sought to subjugate it: the Ottomans, the French, and then the Syrian central state over the last 70 years. Many have tried to enslave the Druze, but they have mostly failed. In Suwayda, those who stood up to the colonizers and tyrants are admired: Sultan Basha al-Atrash, Kamal Jumblatt, Khaldun Zein Ed-Din, Wahid al-Balous…

Under the rule of the father and son Assad, the Druze oscillated between neutrality and rebellion, and the region was always punished, marginalized, neglected, thus remaining autonomous despite itself. As a result, Suwayda still looks like a large village, known for its landscape scattered with volcanic stones, but also for the sense of honor and the unconditional hospitality of its people. Dignity and generosity are indeed values for which the Druze are willing to give their lives.

For this film, we stayed five months in Suwayda following the fall of the Assad regime, during this short period when the new government took control of the reins of dictatorship. We went to meet the members of the community, faction leaders, and spiritual leaders, whom we questioned about their relationship with the central power, the principles, and values that drive them. We were on the ground when, on two occasions, government forces and their Islamist allies attacked the province, before carrying out the largest massacre in its history. We met the Druze fighters who mobilized by the thousands to defend their families and land. Finally, in the hours before our evacuation from the siege imposed by government forces on the region at the end of July, we documented the consequences of the murderous madness that fell upon them, upon us…

Once again, the Druze were not subjugated, but part of their world was annihilated.

The film also tells the story of a community’s betrayed hopes, one that had imagined itself Syrian until the very end.

The narration is in Arabic, by Khuzama, who introduces us to her community, lets us meet its members and representatives, while sharing her analysis and feelings about these six months that broke the bond between Syria and its Druze community.