Screening + Q&A: Where is Love?

Heart-warming and powerful, Where is Love? follows three Syrian refugee children, a girl, Alaa, and two boys, Fadi, and Qusai, all Jordan-based amateurs who have never acted or sung before, as they star in the first ever Arabic adaptation of Lionel Bart’s great musical, Oliver!, updated to a modern Arab city. Produced by the Trojan Women Project, who also produced the Oliver! musical, Where is Love? follows the cast of Syrian refugee and under-privileged Jordanian children through six months of drama workshops, as they see their own experience of hardship, exile and abandonment by society, mirrored in Bart’s musical vision of Charles Dickens’ scathing condemnation of Victorian poverty. The film shows the challenges these children face, how they overcome some of them at least through the healing power of music and performance, becoming the toast of Amman, in their final triumphant performance in Amman’s Royal Cultural Centre. The musical itself, directed by the renowned Egyptian actor and human rights’ activist, Khaled Abol Naga, was supported by The Mackintosh Foundation and Niarchos Foundation. The current tragedy in Gaza and debates over migration make this powerful film - currently in the final stages of post -production - even more resonant.The main interviews in the film were conducted by Sherine Salama, an award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker originally from Ramallah.

Panel moderated by Sam Kiley, former Foreign Affairs Editor Sky News, Senior International Correspondent CNN, Middle East Bureau Chief, The Times. Featuring Fadi Al Assal, AKA Oliver and Oliver! translator Zeinab Mobarak.

Sam Kiley is a veteran international correspondent and documentary maker, former Foreign Affairs Editor Sky News, Senior International Correspondent CNN, Middle East Bureau Chief, The Times. He is currently working on a book.

Charlotte Eagar, former foreign correspondent, and William Stirling, both award-wining filmmakers, founded Trojan Women Project in 2013: they have been producing highly acclaimed plays, films and now podcasts with refugees and asylum seekers ever since. www.trojanwomenproject.org. TWP is launching an educational fund to help support the cast of Oliver! through further education.

Zeinab Mobarak is a Cairo-based children's writer and literary translator. A graduate of the American University in Cairo, she is one of the primary and most experienced Arabic translators of Disney movies and has written many shows for children including one recently for kids in Gaza.

Fadi Al Assal played the title role of Oliver! A Syrian refugee based in Jordan, Fadi is now studying Cyber-security at Jordan’s Al-Zaytoona university.

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