All This Death

Cycles of repetition are both a prison and a crutch in All This Death.

Fadi Syriani’s animation takes inspiration from a real neighbour the director had growing up in Beirut, a man who the director has characterised as always attending funerals. The version of this man who appears in his short film, Vladimir, is one who seems to spend his entire days scanning newspapers and circling obituaries and death notices before heading out and attending the funerals of the deceased. However, Syriani’s story attempts to get under the skin of the man, coming to understand the pain and grief – for personal loss, for societal loss – that underpin his mournful routine. Having premiered back at Annecy in 2025, the film now screens as part of the Arab Short Films Competition in Amman.

The tactility of the puppets and miniature sets that make up Vladimir’s condensed world create a real texture to his experience. Whether it is him sitting on his corduroy sofa or the stitching on a shroud at one of the funerals, it has an almost haptic quality that we are also constantly aware of in how his form has been built and shaped by the animators. While the story is one of a seemingly endless loop, from which this elderly man is unable to extract himself, it also becomes evident that this link back to the world, this physical act of attendance and witness is also a way for him to remain connected when he is otherwise cut adrift.

The act of remembering, the act of lamenting, is ritualistic here and the animation allows for us to see the passage of time through Vladimir’s ritual, to see the changes to the city he lives in via the same means, and even to get glimpses into his psyche via fragments of his relationship to his wife and fragments of reverie when he crosses certain thresholds within his home. Syriani’s version of Vladimir is a man constantly in silent conversation with what he has had and what he has lost, wrangling with holes that time leaves in all our lives.

Director, writer: Fadi Syriani
Producers: Jana Wehbe, Georg Neubert, Maryam Al Khulaifa, Fadi Syriani
Cinematography: Pierre Mouarkech, Markus Ilschner
Editing: Carine Doumit, Fadi Syriani
Animation: Mikkel Mainz, The Animation Workshop – TAW
Sound: Lama Sawaya
Production companies: The Attic Productions (Lebanon), Reynard Films (Germany)
Venue: Amman Film Festival (Arab Short Film Competition)
No dialogue
16 minutes

Read our coverage of more short films in our Verdict Shorts section.