Recalling the days of my university life, I would much more excitedly talk about the films I saw rather than good books or memorable lecturers. Teaching at JBNU, I am convinced that students learn the most from discussion among themselves and certainly much more from good films than my yawn-inducing lecturers. Salam Neighbor is one of the films that I try to show all the students who take my courses at least once in their university life. This film tells us about international politics, human rights, refugee, humanitarian crisis, international conflict, international cooperation, development: they are anyway all about you and your neighbours.

Zach and Chris are American film-makers and activists from Los Angeles. When they watched a TV news on the conflicts in the Middles East, they wanted to see the real lives of people living there. They decided to fly to Jordan and spend a month at Za’atari refugee camp, 11 kilometres away from Syria-Jordan borders. They were the first non-refugees who were allowed to register and set-up a tent inside a UN refugee camp. They talked, ate, danced, cried, and lived among the people in and out of the camp: Syrian refugees. They did not display the agony of the refugees but talk in a quite tone about their efforts to survive with traumatic experiences of war.

Smart and cheerful 10-year-old boy Raouf became a good friend of Zach and Chris. From the very first day, he helped the strange non-refugee American visitors with setting up their tent and explaining how to use supplies like toothpaste and soap. They play soccer together and smartphone games too. Raouf wants to become a doctor who can help the injured but does not to go to school. Zach and Chris persuaded him and took him to the front gate of a refugee school in the camp. Raouf tried but could not stay in the school. He cried and ran out.

Zach and Chris got to know why only after they listened from Raouf’s father. Several days before Raouf fled from Syria, a bomb hit his school. He lost his school and was traumatised by the bombing on the school. They realised the sounds of bombing were still heard occasionally from the borders 11 kilometres away.

Salam Neighbor is the first part of Zach and Chris’s project on the Syrian refugee crisis: the documentary film was followed by social impact campaigns, fund raisings, petitions, and volunteers. Making, screening, seeing, and talking about a film can make the world a better place. I want to invite you to this film, Salam Neighbor . Say hello and peace, ‘Salam’, to your neighbours around the world. And, one more thing to know: more than 1,200 Syrian refugees live in South Korea. They are your neighbours.

Chulhyo Kim / Lecturer at The School of International Studies, JBNU