The world: Jackie Chan is producing a movie in Syria. Some Syrians are outraged.
Growing up in Syria, Mohammad al-Abdallah loved watching Jackie Chan movies. They were dubbed in Arabic, and Chan’s acrobatic style of martial arts just blew him away.
“Like, even in school, sometimes people tried to copy him. So, he was a legend to our generation,” Abdallah said.
Abdallah comes from a family of activists in Syria. He was jailed and tortured by the government, he said, and had to flee to the US. He now directs the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, a human rights organization in Washington.
Syria is home for Abdallah, but one that he can’t return to. At least not now. So, this past week, when he found out that Chan was producing a film in his home country, his ears perked up; but after he learned the details, he was disappointed.
Chan’s production team began filming “Home Operation,” in Syria this past week. The location is a city called Al-Hajar al-Aswad, outside of the capital, Damascus. The area was a stronghold for the opposition during the war. The news has outraged some Syrians like Abdallah, who say their destroyed homes are not props for foreign film productions.
Last week, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, himself, strolled through the ruins of Aleppo, another city destroyed in the war. Photos posted online showed him and his family in casual summer linen, looking as if they are on a Mediterranean vacation.
“They walk around like, ‘Oh, where did this destruction come from?’ As if they didn’t have a hand in it,” Malek said.
For Syrian filmmaker Waad al-Kateab, influencers and artists flocking to Syria for content is just painful.
“It’s really difficult just to think about it,” she said.
Kateab made a documentary about the uprisings in Syria called “For Sama,” that was nominated for an Oscar in 2020. She fled her home in Aleppo and now lives in the UK.
She said that she’s also troubled about “Home Operation” being shot in Syria.
“We’re worried to see our own neighborhoods, where we grew up, our own houses, which were destroyed by the regime, [become] like a part of a film set,” she said.
Chan’s publicist didn’t respond to an interview request for this story.