Rafat Alzakout

Born in Damascus in 1977, Rafat Alzakout graduated as an actor from the prestigious Damascus Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in 2003. He subsequently worked successfully as a theatre director in Syria and Lebanon, staging both contemporary Syrian and international texts, such as Edward Albee's The Zoo Story and plays by Moliere and Chekhov. With the beginning of the peaceful uprising in Syria in March 2011, he created a satirical short film series for social media that combined hand puppet theatre and film. The series received international attention and was shown in numerous festivals and exhibitions, including the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2012, he made Home, his first documentary feature-length film, in which he describes how the dream of personal and artistic freedom in Syria crumbles over the course of three years in a mixture of diary-like reflections and observation. Home was also screened in numerous international festivals and won the Marseille Esperance Prize at the FID Marseille Festival in 2015 and the Grand Prize at the Tetouan Film Festival in Morocco in 2016. Rafat Alzakout has been living in Berlin since November 2015 and works internationally as a theatre director.