''The Cave'' ( ar, الكهف) is a 2019 Syrian-Danish
documentary film directed by
Feras Fayyad
Feras Fayyad (born September 20, 1984) is a Syrian film director, producer, and writer. Fayyad best known for his 2017 documentary '' Last Men in Aleppo and his 2019 documentary The Cave,'' both films earned him critical acclaim and numerous a ...
and written by Fayyad and Alisar Hasan.
[Brent Lang]
"With ‘The Cave,’ ‘Last Men in Aleppo’ Director Feras Fayyad Returns to Syria to Find a Hero"
''Variety
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Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', September 6, 2019. A companion piece to his earlier film ''
Last Men in Aleppo
''Last Men in Aleppo'' (in Arabic آخر الرجال في حلب) is a 2017 documentary film about the Syrian Civil War. Written and directed by Feras Fayyad, produced by Kareem Abeed and Søren Steen Jespersen, it documents the life in Aleppo ...
'', the film profiles Dr.
Amani Ballour, a
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
in
Ghouta who is operating a makeshift hospital nicknamed "the Cave" during the
Syrian Civil War. The film premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
(TIFF) on September 5, 2019.
Summary
In an interview, Fayyad said his purpose in making the film was to create documentary evidence that could be used to seek justice for innocent victims of the civil war. "The film should put people in an uncomfortable position to look through the terrible reality around us," he said.
Reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of with an average rating of , based on reviews. The site's consensus states that "A hard-hitting documentary with imagery as powerful as its message, ''The Cave'' poses heartbreakingly urgent questions -- and leaves them for the viewer to answer." It also has a score of 83 out of 100 on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The film received the Cinema For Peace Foundation award for the Most Valuable Documentary of the Year at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.
Accolades
The film premiered at the
2019 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the
People's Choice Award for Documentaries.
The Cave won
The Cinema for Peace Award for The Most Valuable Documentary of the Year for 2019.
''The Cave'' was nominated for
Best Documentary Feature at the
92nd Academy Awards
The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 2019 and took place on February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:00 p ...
.
References
External links
*
*
Official trailer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cave, The
2019 films
2019 multilingual films
Danish documentary films
2010s Arabic-language films
Documentary films about the Syrian civil war
Documentary films about women in war
Documentary films about health care
National Geographic Society films
Syrian documentary films
Peabody Award-winning broadcasts
Primetime Emmy Award-winning broadcasts
2010s American films