Only the Ocean Between Us
Director: Khaldiya Amer Ali, Marah Mohammad Alkhateeb, Karoli Bautista Pizarro, Christy Cauper Silvano
Documentary – 2021 – 81 minutes – General Audience – Arab Premiere
USA, Jordan, Peru
Language: Arabic, Spanish, and Shipibo – subtitled in English
Cinematography: Khaldiya Amer Ali, Marah Mohammad Alkhateeb, Karoli Bautista Pizarro, Christy
Cauper Silvano
Editing: EB Landesberg, Laura Doggett, Tasneem Toghoj
Producers: EB Landesberg, Laura Doggett, Tasneem Toghoj, Lali Madueño Medina
Synopsis:
Two Syrian directors in Za’atari Refugee Camp, Jordan and two Indigenous Shipibo-Conibo directors in Lima, Peru correspond through film diaries in a cross-border project from Another Kind of Girl Collective.
“Only the Ocean Between Us” tells four profoundly personal stories of motherhood, displacement, and the power of both personal and communal resistance.

First-time Co-Directors’ Biographies:
Khaldiya Amer Ali is a Syrian filmmaker living in Za'atari Refugee Camp, Jordan. Her short film “Another Kind of Girl” (2015) premiered at Sundance and screened at Cannes and SXSW (South by Southwest). It won numerous awards, and was featured as a New York Times Op-doc. She won a 2015 Kassel Documentary Film Festival A-38 Production Grant. Her first feature-length film, “Only the Ocean Between Us” (supported by the Sundance Institute and Creative Capital), had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2021.

Marah Mohammed Alkhateeb is a Syrian filmmaker living in Za'atari Refugee Camp, Jordan. Her short film “Children” (2015) won numerous awards at film festivals. She also won a top award at Punto De Vista International Documentary Film Festival. More recently, she created a short film for the Thomson Reuters Association and completed a 360 film. Her first feature-length film, “Only the Ocean Between Us” (supported by the Sundance Institute and Creative Capital), had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2021.

Karoli Bautista Pizarro is a Shipibo-Conibo filmmaker, cultural practitioner and activist living in Cantagallo, Lima, Peru. Her short film “Escúchame Cantar” (2016) screened at the North Carolina Latin American Film Festival and Alice Fest. Her photographs were featured in an article in the Peruvian investigative journal Ojo Público about human rights issues in her community during the 2020 lockdown. Her first feature-length film, “Only the Ocean Between Us” (supported by the Sundance Institute and Creative Capital), had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2021.

Christy Cauper Silvano is a Shipibo-Conibo photographer, filmmaker and cultural practitioner living in Cantagallo, Lima, Peru. She co-directed the short film “Un Pedacito de la Selva en la Ciudad” (2015), which won an audience award at Mi Primer Festival, in Lima. Her photographs were also featured in the group exhibit “Fotos por el Cambio” at the Peruvian North American Cultural Institute. Her first feature-length film, “Only the Ocean Between Us” (supported by the Sundance Institute and Creative Capital), had its world premiere at Hot Docs 2021.