Hernan Zin
Hernán Zin (Buenos Aires, 1971) has a degree in International Relations and has spent the last 20 years travelling the world creating documentaries and writing articles and books. He has directed the documentaries VILLAS MISERIA (2009), I WANT TO BE MESSI (2013), THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN (2013). BORN IN GAZA (2014), MATADORAS (2015), 10 AÑOS CON BEBE (2016).

Director's statement
“Twenty years ago, I decided to hone the focus of my work as a reporter and documentary filmmaker into regions of armed conflict. I felt it necessary to humanize the numbers we see every day in the news headlines. Give them names. Remove the tyranny of the here and now to delve into and give a voice to their stories and context. Since then, I have worked in over 50 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. My camera is always on my shoulder. From Afghanistan to Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Lebanon, Gaza, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Syria. If I have learned anything in this time, it is that the elderly and the children always suffer the most from war. They are the most defenseless victims. These children serve a double sentence as the physical and psychological traumas will follow them for the rest of their lives. The conflict in Syria, like all civil wars and like almost all armed confrontation of the twenty-first century, takes place in urban areas with a high impact on the civilian population. The sides are blurry. The armies, in large part, are soldiers by necessity. In this scenario, the impact on Syrian childhood is horrible. 40% of the victims of the conflict are under the age of 18. The other harsh reality for Syrian children is the extended duration of the conflict. It has already been a five-year struggle for the most affected areas—five years without access to healthcare, education, and basic services like electricity and running water. Clearly, it is important to tell the story of the war in Syria from the perspective of childhood. Even more so when hundreds of thousands of children, in many cases alone, in some with their families, have embarked upon the most significant exodus to Europe since the Second World War”.