Syrian Director Soudade Kaadan's documentary film Obscure is landing its world premiere within the Official Competition at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (CPH:DOX) (6 - 26 March).

CPH:DOX is the third largest documentary film festival in the world. Each year, the festival fills Copenhagen's cinemas with a selection of more than 200 films from around the world.

Obscure tells the story of Ahmad, a Syrian child who doesn't want to remember that he is Syrian. Half traumatized, half trying to escape his reality, Ahmad prefers to be silent and asleep. In his silence and refusal to talk, he takes us in a journey where individual and collective Syrian memories collapse.

Commenting on her film, director Soudade Kaadan says, "I didn't want to make a film about Ahmad; I wanted to make a film about children that are traumatized by war and have extraordinary stories to share. Ahmad is almost mute. The first day I met him, I spent about 30 minutes to get one short sentence from him: "My name is Ahmad". But I couldn't forget him. Each day I saw his face, flashing in my memory during my daily activities, as if he was waiting for me to come back. And I finally did it, Ahmed's silence is my story."

Soudade Kaadan's is a co-production between Syria and Lebanon through KAF production. The film has earned the MAD Solutions award within the events of the 4th Venice Final Cut Workshop at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival that offers promotional and distribution services to the winning project across the Arab world.

Born in France, Soudade Kaadan is a Syrian director who studied theater criticism and graduated from the Institut des Etudes Scénique, Audiovisuelles et cinématographiques (IESAV), Saint Joseph University in Lebanon. She directed and produced several documentary films for Aljazeera Documentary Channel, UNDP, UNHCR and UNICEF. Her films have been screened at several venues nationally and internationally. Kaadan received international awards such as: Martine Filippi award (URTI Grand Prix for Author's Documentaries) at the Monte Carlo TV Festival and the second prize of Muhr Arab Documentary award at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).