Famous English film director Sean McAllister’s film A Syrian Love Story is included in the competition of documentary films of the Golden Apricot International Film Festival.

It is a story of love and family under the conditions of the Syrian crisis. Filmed over five years, A Syrian Love Story charts an incredible odyssey to political freedom in the West. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams and despair: for the revolution, their homeland and each other.

“I have tried to avoid politics as much as possible and focus on the love story of a couple, which is more universal than politics,” Sean McAllister told a press conference today.

Having left school at 16, Sean McAllister worked in a variety of factories in the North of England before he picked up a camera and filmed his way into the National Film School, where he graduated in 1996.

His first film, Working for the Enemy was followed up with The Minders and both earned him Royal Television Society Award Nomination. After these came Settlers (2000) and Hull’s Angel in 2002.

From his early films to his more recent international successes, Sean McAllister’s films portray, with characteristic intimacy and frankness, people from different parts of the world who are struggling to survive but are survivors. They are caught up in political and personal conflicts, trying to make sense of the world we live in.