Zyara is our way of loving the world.
— The Zyara Makers
Watch Zyara S7 Behind the Scenes Video
Watch Zyara Latest Season
The Documentary Series
Zyara is the main creation of Home of Cine-Jam. It is an award-winning documentary series that paints poetic portraits of people. Through 5-minute episodes, Zyara manages to engrave parts of its subjects’ souls, some of their stories, and most of all, their emotions.
Since the birth of Zyara in 2014, we have produced 9 seasons (101 episodes) and we are committed to producing 12 episodes per year.
The series has become a powerful healing tool, addressing different social issues and promoting acceptance, oneness, and resilience. Through its audio-visual language, Zyara bypasses judgment and allows people to connect to each other emotionally.
Zyara Mission
Zyara aims to influence the public opinion and promote oneness, acceptance and positivity by visiting people, meeting them in their personal environment, talking to them heart to heart, listening to their most cherished stories and the memories that marked them the most, feeling their deepest emotions, and sharing them with the world.
Zyara From Beirut to the World
There is significant potential for exporting this model across different territories starting from Lebanon, and for developing a centralised hub which can act as a conduit for shared experiences and constructive debate.
We aim to film Zyara everywhere around the world.
Public Screenings
Public discussions at local screenings is a key element of the “Zyara” concept and one which gives both civil society and community leaders a chance to explore ways of supporting the empowerment of people by creating opportunities to highlight those who chose to be the heroes of their own stories.
Zyara S8 Beirut Premiere Screening in Martyr Square
Social Impact
Zyara has proven to be a much needed educational tool for awareness and empowerment, especially among the youth. It is time we give equal value to our emotional healing in order to prevent our future generations from the darkness of bullying, depression, abuse, war and more.
We strive to abolish victimization and to remind our future generations of their strength and the beauty of their dreams.
Watch Dr. Farah Moukaddam's Testimony Video
Education of the Heart
Through its topics and the debates they create online, in festivals and in schools, Zyara is targeting the delicate age bracket where childhood issues are brought back to the surface.
We are working hand in hand with all educational institutions, supporting their mission in helping this rising generation speak up about its potential pain and turn expression into a tool for social healing.
Watch Zyara School and University Screenings Videos
Support us
Financial contribution
Connecting Zyara with schools/universities for screenings
Connecting Zyara to a platform/distribution
Invite us to screen Zyara around the world
Propose new Zyara heroes: Application Form
Director's Statement
The audio visual language of Zyara
When Denise Jabbour first approached me to go and film interviews with people to ask them about their lives, I first declined as I wasn’t triggered artistically towards the idea.
In order to make it happen, we agreed on the following: I film what I feel and she asks what she feels.
This is how we started in season 1, I filmed only what I felt I was drawn to intuitively, without any thinking or judgment. I knew before I went on the first day of shoot (summer 2014) that I did not want to see the person till the end (I dreamt it) and I also knew that in order for me to write with the natural light, I needed to un-peel the layers within this encounter. The layers that I discovered along the way are made of skin, light, objects, and eyes…
The process of creating Zyara was like a channeling of a vision that was meant to be, the smooth flow of the edit and the simplicity of the process are really overwhelming.
Every layer that blends into another is a pure accident and magical!
It is a great challenge to use the same tools to paint a different soul every time. It is a journey to feel and witness the light around and within the person we visit, knowing that I need to grab it all through my lens, as authentically as possible, with as much love as possible.
Organically, With time, season after season, the language evolved in rhythm and pace. The tools are the same, the macro lens and the natural light keep dancing at the rhythm of our hero’s voice, a unique different dance for each but all leading to the light. The only rule I follow is authenticity.
Letting go of the thought process is the most freeing experience we can live as artists, it is an act of self-love and most of all it is a highly spiritual act where we connect with the source of all creation with no expectations just trusting the magic of audiovisual chemistry blending with the intention to discover and love the person we meet. That is what our intuitive filmlab is, that is what I teach, what I have to offer.
Every season Zyara changes in its pace and heartbeat but the purpose remains, like water it adapts and flows but its essence remains. Zyara is meant to unite us all under the emotional umbrella that makes us human.
Today after 72 episodes are being produced, I look at the canvas, I see all of them as one. filming Zyara is a meditation as it is for those who watch it.
Zyara was born blurry, slow, poetic, a visual painting of layers, and most of all an ode to the light (inner and outer)… Zyara’s visual style was born like that from my womb, my inner Gut feeling and I respect that because I truly believe that it is being created through me, not by me.
As an artist and creator of the visual language of this series, I am grateful and happy to have been given this opportunity by life and I look forward to witnessing all the possible transformations that Zyara & I will go through.