With a unique ability, this sensitive Syrian woman has chosen to confront the roughness of things with her delicate voice, the crudeness of the world with a surplus of tenderness — theatre with reality. Raghda Al Sharani is a Syrian theater director who decided to be what she wanted to be and to say what she wanted to say, regardless of circumstances or any resistance.

Her childhood was marked by an absent father and a strident mother, as well as a long illness that isolated her from the world. She grew up in the Syrian mountains surrounded by exceptional nature.

Raghda’s introduction to art was most unusual, as she says, “Art, in my childhood, was connected to four things: a piece of white cloth, snow, Charlie Chaplin, and my grandfather. My grandfather worked as a carpenter and owned a cinema in the area we lived, and in his home he had a small old-fashioned movie projector. When he came home, he would put up a big piece of white cloth on the wall and start projecting silent films to entertain me: Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and short clips he had taken of me and my family. In the evening,...