Syria's First Oscar Candidate Since Assad's Fall Is a Berlinale Documentary

Syria has chosen Tawfik Sabouni's documentary “The Other Side of the Sun” to represent it in the best international feature film category at the 2027 Academy Awards, Variety reports. The film had its world premiere in the Panorama section of this year's Berlinale. Variety describes it as Syria's first Oscar candidate since the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. A documentary that debuted in a festival sidebar now carries a country's banner into awards season, which is a reminder of how much of a national cinema's visibility abroad runs through festival programmers long before any distributor gets involved.