The Day I Lost My Shadow is the first feature film by Syrian documentary director Soudade KAADAN, and the winner of the Lion of the Future at Venice in 2018. In Damascus in 2012, when the Syrian civil war was most intense, the infrastructure was all destroyed, and the sound of bombs and shootings seemed to be alive. This is the home of Sana and her son, Khalil. The film is more like a road movie centered on Sana, entangled in an accident, but it does not simply focus on stories of growth. In a country undergoing a civil war, a journey for survival is always shown on roads paved with death, the reason the handheld camera follows the characters as they approach the situation and their psychology after looking through the gray, Syrian landscape. The film tragically deals with the lives of those whose home has collapsed and who have lost their shadows. Nevertheless, like Sana’s last words to Khalil, Syria′s new generation, the film asks us “not to be afraid” of the tragedy itself. (Park Jinhee)