In a Syrian border village in the early 1980s, little Sero experiences his first year at school. He plays cheeky pranks with his classmates, dreams of a television so that he can finally watch cartoons, and at the same time has to experience how the adults around him are increasingly crushed by nationalist despotism and violence. A new teacher has arrived to turn the Kurdish children into tight pan-Arab comrades. He bans the Kurdish language with his baton, orders the worship of Assad and preaches hatred of the Jews, the Zionist arch-enemies. The lessons confuse Sero, as his longtime neighbors are an endearing Jewish family. With a fine sense of humor and satire, director Mano Khalil paints a picture of a childhood that also finds light moments under the Assad dictatorship. The film is inspired by his personal childhood experiences and spans the touching narrative to the Syrian tragedy of the present.
(Frenetic Films)