Hala Alabdalla

Hala Alabdalla (born 1956 in Hama, Syria) is a Syrian cinematographer and director. She currently lives in Paris, producing movies. She is known for Je suis celle qui porte les fleurs vers sa tombe ("I Am She who Brings the Flowers to her Grave"), Comme si nous attrapions un cobra ("As If We Were Catching a Cobra"), and Besieged Like Me (2016). As a young woman, Hala was highly involved in politics. She was arrested at the age of 20 and spent 14 months in jail. Later, she moved to Paris with her husband, Youssef Abdelke. There she decided to embark in cinema, and contacted her friends Amiralay, Malas and Mohammad for guidance. Their advice, to let the idea go, only increased her passion grow and determination. Hala started working in cinema at 31, traveling between France and Syria. Originally an artistic collaborator, she became a co-director. She is the producer and manager of a company named Ramadfilm in Syria. At 50, she released her well-known documentary “I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave”, the movie was a great success and recognized internationally, winning awards at the Venice Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival. It was also nominated at the Venice Film Festival for another award, and garnered additional nominations at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and the Nantes Three Continents Film Festival. She used cinema as an instrument, a mean of communication whether for politics or poetry. Hala lived near the Damacus Ciné Club, and used to discuss cinema with its owners at the time — Omar Amiralay, Moaammad Malas, and others. After a time she felt the need to make movies herself, drawn by their potential for carrying a strong political message or advocating for a cause. To her, the movies began to be something shaped like a work of art, as an aesthetic audio-visual base. I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave reflects her journey in cinema, the political message as a work of art. Omar Amiralay - Sorrow, Time and Silence (2021) Comme si nous attrapions un cobra, As If We Were Catching A Cobra, (2012) Hé! N'oublie pas le cumin, Hey! Don't Forget the Cumin, (2008) Yolla, Un retour vers soi (2008), for France Culture.