Playwrights Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf
Directed by Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf
Featuring Rom Barkhordar, Daniel Cantor, Catherine Dildilian, Susaan Jamshidi, Charlette Speigner, Yousof Sultani, and Demetrios Troy
The Translator tells the story of Sammy, an English-Arabic translator who defected from Syria, and Zaid, his politically active brother who is arrested for peacefully demonstrating against the regime. A fearful Sammy illegally returns to Syria in order to find his brother and in the process discovers his courage.
We were living in Damascus, Syria with our two small children until the revolution started in March 2011. At that point, surrounded by conflict, we also found ourselves in conflict with one another. Afraid, Rana wanted to leave the country, while Anas wanted to stay. We spent the next year apart and, at times it felt like the only thing that connected us was the creation of this film. Most of our families still live in Syria. And we have friends and family who have been imprisoned, kidnapped, tortured and displaced as a result of the current conflict. It was a very difficult decision to leave the country and hard now to be away. We still have our home there and sadly it was bombed in an attack last year. And yet we hope to return one day.The Translator is set during the first five months of the Syrian Revolution, March-July, 2011, in which peaceful protestors were killed, arrested and tortured by their government. After those five months of peaceful protest, the conflict has now blown up into the sectarian, regional, proxy, religious war that we are witnessing today, three years later in 2014.
