Syrian Dinner & a Movie: Sugar Cage with Filmmaker Zeina Al Qahjwaji

February 28, 2024 5:00 PM–7:30 PM

4919 Frew Street
College of Fine Arts Room 111
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213

Zeina Al Qahwaji, Reem Alghazzi

This event is free but seating is limited. Please RSVP to register [rsvp link is: https://forms.gle/MmbsJSHHsTkbjwTR7]

Join us at 5PM on Wednesday February 28th for a discussion with the film’s director, Zeina Al Qahwaji, a screening of the film,and a delicious meal catered by Ali Baba. This event will be moderated by writer and filmmaker Reem Alghazzi.

In the short documentary Sugar Cage Zeina Al Qahwaji trains her camera on the intimate life of her aging parents over the course of eight years, from the beginning of a civil movement to the outbreak of war in Syria. Sugar Cage observes scenes of isolation, fear, and stagnancy that overshadow life at home, yet also shows how love bonds her subjects together against the heaviness of time and war. In 2021 Sugar Cage won the Best Feature Documentary award at the challenging 22nd edition of the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts.

Zeina Al Qahwaji is a Syrian documentary filmmaker.  She started working in the documentary film industry in 2010. In 2017, she obtained her Master’s degree in documentary filmmaking at the DOC NOMADS Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree program. She currently works and lives in Belgium, where she is in the process of developing her next feature.