Allies in Exile

For fourteen years, Syrian filmmakers Hasan Kattan and Fadi Al-Halabi have documented war, revolution and each other. Now, confined to a UK asylum hotel, they turn their cameras inward.

Collaborators and friends since the early days of the Syrian revolution, Kattan and Al-Halabi spent years filming together on the frontlines, capturing moments that defined a generation. Now their journey has taken an unexpected turn, as the frontlines give way to waiting rooms, bureaucracy and the slow grind of exile. As anti-refugee hostility rises around them, filming itself becomes an act of resilience. Drawing on remarkable archival footage from their years together, the film explores friendship, displacement and what it means to keep telling stories when the future remains out of reach.