CHAMPION

The modern definition of ‘champion’ is restored in this new film set in today’s Syria, a place where the word has regressed to its former meaning of a knight, a warrior or a martyr of the battlefields.
In Champion something akin to a therapy is administered to Syrian history. The strong body of the champion is restored, but this time in its modern sense of that of an athlete. 
And now the concept of champion in Syria is once again being epitomized by athletes, as is the case around the world.  
As this curative response plays out through the cultural and informative scenes of a film we witness not merely the correction of social norms and concepts defiled and mutilated by war but rather a resurrection. In this true-life legend the once champion sportsman is reduced by his jailors to a shell of his former self but eventually goes on to restore his body. This recovery occurs not just on the individual level but also on the societal level through his creation of the General Authority for Youth & Sports and on the symbolic level as a Syrian individual rejecting the once obligatory dedications to Assad the father and Assad the sons and reclaiming his sporting victories for himself and his country as a free man.