Chasing the Dazzling Light

Director Yaser Kassab followed in his father’s footsteps by emigrating as a young man from Syria to Europe, and like his father he also had the ambition to become a filmmaker. Now they are working together on this film remotely. From Syria, the father gives his son direction on the phone or in video calls, along with advice about future film projects or how to organize his life—loving conversations interspersed with well-intentioned parental advice. This at times leads to amusing or uncomfortable scenes, while the film creates a beautiful portrait of a father in absence—a man who cannot be with his son, like so many Syrians who are separated from their offspring, whether by distance or death. Father and son live with a certain loneliness; for the refugee filmmaker, this arises from his attempts to build a new life with his wife within the confines of Sweden’s stricter new immigration laws. This is Kassab’s third film in a trilogy screened at IDFA, following On the Edge of Life and I Have Seen Nothing, I Have Seen All.