Ziad Kalthoum

Ziad Kalthoum
Documentary Skills
Visiting Lecturer (2020-21)

Ziad Kalthoum is a Syrian filmmaker currently living in Berlin. He was born in Homs in 1981.

In the first documentary Oh My Heart (2009) he portrayed a group of Kurdish women, who have chosen to live in a society without men. The film was banned from screening in Syria due to political reasons.

In 2012, during the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, he began working on his first feature film The Immortal Sergeant while serving a compulsory military service. The film had its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2014. In 2015, he won the BBC Arabic Festival in the ‘Best Feature Documentary’ category.

Refusing to fight his own people, he deserted from the Syrian Army in 2013 and fled to Beirut where he started to work on Taste of Cement. The film has been traveling to festivals around the world and has won various awards, among them the Golden Sesterce for Best Feature Documentary at Visions du Réel in 2017.