Message from Under the Sea رسالة من تحت الماء

Message from Under the Sea (Arabic: رسالة من تحت الماء, literally “A message from under the water”) is a documentary shot in Egypt in 2013. It meets Syrian refugees who tried to cross the Mediterranean to Europe and were saved from drowning — only to be arrested by the Egyptian authorities and locked up in Karmouz prison in Alexandria. Among them were children and entire families. From inside the prison, some of them tell their stories, from the sea to the cell.

The film was directed, written and narrated by Mahmoud Hasan. The subject was close to home: his own relatives were among the detainees. His poetic, literary narration carries the film — yet his face is never seen. Out of concern for his family in Syria, he did not want to be filmed.

Behind the camera was Jahja Alkhatib, and the images bear clear traces of the conditions the film was made under. Inside the prison the camera stays close to the witnesses, shooting from a low angle and often leaving their faces out of frame — as if hiding from the guards’ eyes. Daily life behind bars is shot on a long telephoto lens, like a glance from a distance. Outside the walls the images open up: room to breathe in the compositions, and faces that are allowed to be seen.

One moment stands out. As singing rose among the detainees, the director — who had avoided the camera until then — asked Jahja to document what was happening. The scene was filmed without faces in frame and found its place at the heart of the finished film. It is the only time Mahmoud Hasan himself is seen: as body and voice, but without a face. If you didn’t know, you would never guess that the singing voice is the director’s own.

The film was broadcast in 2014 on the Syrian opposition channel Orient TV. Here you can watch both the 44-minute TV version and a shorter 27-minute cut.