Last Thursday, August 23, Syrian filmmaker Orwa Nyrabia was arrested by Syrian security forces at the Damascus airport while on his way to Cairo. Since then, he has not been heard from. Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker wrote about Nyrabia and his disappearance in a blog post last week. I had the good fortune at the time to meet Orwa Nyrabia (also transcribed Nairabiya). He is a big, ironic, bold spirit, whose jolly nature seemed perversely at odds with the grimly repressive atmosphere inside that country. With another producer, Diana el-Jeiroudi, Orwa started Proaction Film, the only independent documentary-film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 2, 2012