Screening + Q&A: Syria’s Detainee Files

December 2024: the world watched as rebel forces toppled President Bashar Al Assad of Syria after 13 years of civil war. More than 100,000 men, women and children are reported to have ‘vanished’ since the uprising in 2011.

Over two years the directors found and spoke to more than 40 former regime officials - many who have never spoken before.

This film pieces together the story of the disappeared told through two brothers who survived Syria’s prison system and the men who were part of the system. From the arrest and torture of civilians to the meticulous documentation of killings and mass burials; former detainees, prison guards and intelligence officials shed new light on atrocities carried out during Bashar al Assad’s reign.

Sasha Joelle Achilli is a BAFTA, Emmy and DuPont award-winning documentary filmmaker and has spent her career getting at the heart of difficult stories in some of the most remote parts of Africa and the Middle East. At the height of the pandemic Sasha filmed, produced and directed BAFTA and Emmy nominated Italy’s Frontline: a Doctor’s Diary for PBS Frontline and the BBC where she went inside a hospital in Northern Italy to tell the story of an A&E doctor on the frontline of the pandemic. Sasha’s work as a director includes Murdered for Love, a BBC film about the honour killing of a British-Pakistani woman, and Shadow Commander: Iran’s Military Mastermind which tells the story of Iran’s infamous general, Qassem Suleimani, who was subsequently killed by an American drone strike at the beginning of 2020. As a producer Sasha has investigated war crimes in Syria for Channel 4, gone undercover in Iran, and produced BBC critically acclaimed film Outbreak where she spent five months investigating the Ebola crisis in West Africa at the height of the epidemic. She also investigated the terrorist attack in Nairobi's Westgate Mall for the HBO and BBC documentary Terror at the Mall, gaining exclusive access to the CCTV footage and victims of the attack. In 2017 Sasha produced the BBC and HBO documentary, Nigeria's Stolen Daughters: kidnapped by Boko Haram gaining exclusive access to the Chibok girls living in a safe house in North-East Nigeria. More recently she edit produced BAFTA award-winning documentary The Shamima Begum Story.

Sara Obeidat is an Emmy and BAFTA Award Winning Jordanian American journalist and producer. Over the last five years, she has reported and produced several programs for PBS Frontline and the BBC. Obeidat has produced and reported in the Middle East as well as the United States, Central America and Europe. Many of the films she has worked unpack complex issues, including the Saudi Iranian rivalry and the impact it has had on the Middle East, the humanitarian costs of the war in Yemen, the Trump Administration’s child separation policy on the US Mexico border, and America’s public pension crisis.

More recently, Sara produced BAFTA award winning documentary and multi-award winning podcast The Shamima Begum Story, Louis Theroux’s The Settlers as well as The Other War, set in the West Bank in the aftermath of October 7th. She also produced Emmy Award winning film Yemen’s Covid Cover-Up, which investigated the Houthi authorities’ mismanagement of the Covid crisis amidst crippling aid cuts that have weakened Yemen’s health system, and Dupont-nominated investigation that focused on Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The film examined the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the treatment of Saudi activists and critics abroad.

Sara has experience working closely with characters and building relationships that transcend the screen, while also conducting in depth, sit down interviews. Examples of this work can be seen in her films, including Peabody Award Winning film Separated: Children at the Border and the Dupont Award winning film Bitter Rivals.