Sualaiman Abdullah: is a Berlin-based film critic and scriptwriter whose creative work has been evolving since 2021, following his participation in several screenwriting workshops. He is currently working on bringing several stories to life on the big screen. “Has He Left Us?”, marks his debut as a director.

– (H) As he left us (?)- Short hybrid film- as screenwriter and director – 2026
-Fits a thousand friends – Short film, director Ghiath Mhithawi – as screenwriter – Financing. 2025
-It smells like past (WT) – feature film – as screenwriter – in development- 2023

Director’s Statement:

This film emerged from a personal and journalistic exploration of the psychological impact of exile on a generation of Syrian migrants in Germany. The rise of psychological struggle and the complexity of creating support networks in migrant communities with individuals at risk.

Hamoudi, a beloved young man whose passing left a profound shock in the Syrian community in Berlin, where I live. That memory became the spark that set this film in motion.
I was thankfully able to collect the testimonies of many of Hamoudi’s friends, but not on camera. Except for “Rasha”, a journalist and writer, who gathered her strength and bravely faced her grief in front of my lens. A courageous act, one that mirrors Hamoudi’s brave and adventurous spirit.
Through Rasha, we glimpse moments of raw vulnerability, revisiting spaces and moments that once belonged to their friendship, now reimagined through absence.
Cinematically, I wanted to blend fiction and documentary — to create a fictitious correspondence, inspired by real events, between Hammoudi and Rasha. Creating a dialogue between them after his passing, as his presence quietly lingers around her.
This hybrid form allowed me to reimagine Hamoudi’s final years through the lenses of his friends, tracing the uneasy distance that can grow between close companions. The film then shifts from fiction into documentary, capturing what remains of that friendship within Rasha, years after it has ended, imperfect, yet still alive.
The story of Hammoudi and his friends resonates with many souls who fled shattered Syria, carrying the weight of trauma as they must navigate a new reality. Some manage to revive the warmth of friendship they once knew at home. Others find themselves swallowed by solitude in a metropole like Berlin, where friendship takes on a different shape, quieter, lonelier, fragile and imperfect, yet still the most human act of survival.