What I've Learned

...From a Syrian Refugee

Marijn van der Ploeg
Sun 10 Sep

‘Komt goed, ik denk’ (It’ll Be All Right, I Think) is a short film (17 min) about the Syrian refugee Aslam, who is now living in the Netherlands with her three children. The film is about the period when the family has really started building up a new life in this country. They learned Dutch and children started attending school, etc. But how do you know when to hold on to your own culture and traditions, and when you might choose to leave something behind? And how do you deal with the constant fear for the safety of your family and friends who have stayed behind in Syria?

What did you learn during this project?

I would rather ask: what didn’t I learn during this project! Sometimes it’s very important to distance yourself from your process, so that you can look at it from a broader perspective. Sometimes you become so absorbed in your work and your ideas that you forget that you’re making a movie for an audience, and not just for yourself.

What didn’t you expect to learn, but experienced as a bonus?

Something that’s always funny but can also be quite frustrating, is that you always get feedback from many different people during a project, who often completely contradict one another. I learned that it’s important to not only to listen to this feedback, but also to consider it from a critical perspective. Does this fit in with the goal of my film? What’s the story I want to tell? Then you can decide what you should do with this feedback, based on a solid foundation.

Marijn van de Ploeg

Marijn and Aslam's daughter Jouri.

Did you gain any insights that can be used in your further life and study?

An important insight I gained is that being ambitious is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s difficult to get started with something that is unknown and might be a lot of work, but it can also be very rewarding. This project helped me to be more daring in just trying certain things, even though they may seem unrealistic. Pick up the phone, call people and tell them all about your project with the same enthusiasm you feel when you’re working on it. This is how you can inspire people. This is definitely something I’ll also be doing as part of the process for my next films.

What kept you awake at night?

After my first meeting with Aslam, the main character in the film, she said to me: ‘Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell my story.’ In the months that followed, I was often terrified that I wouldn’t be able to tell her story as an honest observer.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell my story.

Aslam, the main character in the film.

What was the greatest obstacle?

The language barrier. Aslam still didn’t speak Dutch or English very well, so it was difficult to reach clear agreements that we both understood. But during the half-year in which I regularly spent time with her, we both learned more and more about each other’s way of communicating.