Draft:The Oath of Cyriac

The Oath of Cyriac is a feature-length documentary-fiction film directed by Olivier Bourgeois and released in 2021. It deals with the challenges of heritage protection, a theme already explored in his previous film Nous resterons sur Terre.

Plot
In the midst of the Syrian conflict, a small group of archaeologists, museum curators and maintenance workers fight to preserve the monumental collections of antiquities at the National Museum of Aleppo.

For several months, these women and men go to the museum every morning under a hail of bombs, facing sniper fire, sleeping on the museum floor for several days to try to accomplish their mission. Without electricity, without water, without means, they empty the display cases, pack the antiquities with pieces of clothing, dismantle the false ceilings to protect them in improvised boxes, build concrete walls to hide ancient statues from looters...

In 2015, as a result of the intensification of the fighting, the Aleppo museum finds itself on the front line and the risk of seeing this historical heritage disappear increases every day. The challenge now becomes to evacuate 50,000 antiquities from a besieged city. In this story that feels like a race against time, it becomes clear that the loss of the museum's collections would lead to the disappearance of a part of human history.

Production

 * Original title: The Oath of Cyriac
 * Director: Olivier Bourgeois
 * Screenplay: Olivier Bourgeois and Yasmine Mahmoud
 * Editing: Frank Meyer
 * Music: Laurent Wolf
 * Production: Olivier Bourgeois, Franck Meyer, Houmam Saad
 * Associate producers: Lluis Alfons Kinder Espinosa
 * Distribution company: Cinemoz Group
 * Country of origin: Andorra
 * Original language: Arabic
 * Format: color . 1.85 . 4K digital
 * Genre: docufiction
 * Running time: 73 minutes
 * Release dates: 2021

Cast

 * Dr Maamoun Abdulkarim: Director General of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria (DGAM)
 * Desbina Baslan: Curator of the Aleppo Museum
 * Muhammad Bashir Shabani: Director of the Aleppo Museum
 * Rahaf Hamwi: Curator of the Aleppo Museum
 * Ahmad Otham: Curator of the Aleppo Museum
 * Nawrouz Tobal: Curator of the Aleppo Museum
 * Ahmad Deeb: Director of Museums (DGAM)
 * Khaled Al Masri: Director of the Department of Archaeology of Aleppo

Reception
The Oath of Cyriac has been very well received, both in the press. and at film festivals dedicated to archaeology. It has been selected or awarded at more than 20 international festivals

Distinctions

 * 1st prize at the 2023 Agrigento Archaeological Film Festival
 * 2022 Archaeological Film Award at the Varese Festival
 * Grand Prix of the Festival, and Best Cultural Heritage Film Award at the 2022 Arkhaios Festival
 * Audience Award and "University of Florence" Award at the 2022 Firenze Archeofilm Festival (Italy)
 * Best Archaeological Film Award at the 33rd edition of RAM (Rovereto-Archaeology-Memory) in 2022 (Italy)
 * Honorable Mention at the 19th International Festival of Archaeology Channel in 2022 (USA)
 * Best Film Award at the 2023 Bratislava Archeofilm Festival (Slovakia)
 * Honorable Mention of the Cardiff International Film
 * Selection of the 2023 Zaragoza Film Festival
 * Selection of the 2022 Cyprus Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Film Festival
 * Selection of the 2022 Naples Archaeological Film Festival