Sanjak Saadoun (Syria) (AFP)

In front of a screen in the courtyard of their school, Kurdish children laugh at discovering the black and white antics of Charlie Chaplin through a traveling cinema that has been running for some weeks in northeastern Syria.

With a projector, a screen, a computer and speakers, director Chiro Hindi and his team crisscross the region to "spread" the 7th art.

"Our goal in the next year is to ensure that every child in Rojava has seen a movie," says the 39-year-old Kurdish filmmaker, using the name given to the semi-autonomous region set up by his community. favor of the Syrian conflict.

Although this region is now relatively untouched by the war, it has paid a heavy price in the past for this conflict, which has claimed more than 370,000 lives since 2011.

Before launching his project, Chiro Hindi directed "Histoires de cités disaster", a film about the destruction of Kurdish cities, including Kobane, where the first fights between the Kurdish forces and the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) took place. .

At the beginning of 2015, the Kurds took over Kobane and, nearly six months ago, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, helped by an international coalition led by Washington, drove the jihadists from the last part of their self-proclaimed "caliphate". Syria.

- "Raising awareness of international cinema" -

In the village of Sanjak Saadoun, the children were waiting for the beginning of "The Kid", directed by Chaplin in 1921, most of whom had never seen a film in the cinema.

Sitting in the courtyard near the basketball court on mismatched plastic chairs, or standing, for lack of space, some exchange with the director.

"We have already screened films in cities, we wanted the children of the villages to enjoy" them too, explains to AFP Chiro Hindi, curly hair and mustache even more furnished than that of the silent film idol.

As the credits begin, children marvel and their eyes widen. Their laughter cuts through the silent scenes of the film, especially as the actor feeds the child with a watering can.

The idea of ​​a traveling cinema emerged after several unsuccessful attempts to settle the project in a cultural center or projection room.

As for Charlie Chaplin's choice, he was motivated by the desire to make the history of cinema known to children who grew up during the war. But the team also projects French films or cartoons, dubbed in Kurdish.

"We want to educate them about international cinema since its inception," says Hindi.

Long absent from the towns and villages of northeastern Syria, even before the outbreak of the war, cinema remains virtually non-existent today in Kurdish areas, most of the rooms having become places of reception or concerts.

- Reviving "memories" -

The Kurdish collective memory is also marked by a fire, triggered in 1960 in a cinema of the Syrian city of Amouda, not far from the Turkish border, which welcomed schoolchildren. More than 280 children had died.

"During my childhood, cinema was this dark place," recalls Hindi. With this project "I wanted to replace this darkness with colors."

In the village of Chagher Bazar near Amouda, he projects the animated film "Spirit, the stallion of the plains", released in 2002, which tells the story of a horse during the conquest of the West to the States In the nineteenth century.

In the school yard, the children hurry to sit down.

"I want my children to discover the cinema," says Amal Ibrahim in a shy voice, surrounded by six-year-old Helen and seven-year-old Kadar. "They were anxious to come here, they have never been to the movies," she adds.

Some men from the village did not hesitate to join the juvenile public. Some, like 56-year-old Adnane Jouli, have not seen a film on the big screen for decades.

"More than forty years ago, I watched films through windows" that looked out onto a projection room, he says. "And now my two children are here and" revive my memories, "he rejoices.

If the initiative can entertain the public, the expansion of cinema in the north-east of Syria in the longer term is part of the dreams of Chiro Hindi's team.

Objective: to create cinemas and organize festivals in collaboration with foreign filmmakers.

"But it will depend on the end of the war and the return to stability," the director says.

© 2019 AFP