There Are So Many Things Still to Say

A few months before his death, the celebrated Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous reflects on the Palestinian question and the conflict between Israel and the Arab world. Wannous wrote several plays with political overtones about the relationship between the individual, society and the authorities.

In conversation with his friend and filmmaker Omar Amiralay, he looks back on the conflict in the Middle East and how it has influenced a generation of intellectuals.

Wannous considers a number of impactful events since the founding of the state of Israel, putting the highly complex conflict in context as he reflects on the feelings they evoked in him: disappointment in failing governments, a sense of oppression due to the lack of compassion, the feeling of not being allowed to see the humanity in others.

At the end of his life, there is no room for false optimism. Wannous shares his poetic reflections with great care, so you can’t help but listen intently to his farewell to a generation for whom political identity is based purely on conflict and disillusionment.