As the festival director Dan Gorman explains: “The basic idea of Reel festivals was to show that people who are caught up in the world’s conflicts are actual people - people who create things, think things, dream things 

Part of #ReelSyria 2012! To get involved email: surround@reelfestivals.org

This week marks the first anniversary of the uprising inSyria, and would have seen the fifth year of Syria’s leading documentary festival, Dox Box. All over the Arab world, film-makers have been documenting their uprisings and paying for it with their freedom and lives. So this year, the Dox Box organisers decided to make a statement against the Assad regime and not hold the festival in Syria; instead, they have planned a Dox Box Global Day to be held in 12 countries, from Sudan to the UK to Kosovo, as a gesture of continued support for these film-makers amid fears that media interest in the conflict is waning. In the UK, Dox Box Global Day will form the opening night of the Reel Syria 2012 festivalin London and Edinburgh, itself a tribute to the resilience of Syria’s artists.

In answer to the desperate need for humanitarian relief for the Syrian people inside Syria as well as in Syrian refugee camps in neighbouring countries, Mosaic Initiative for Syria has announced a fundraising gala taking place this Saturday, March 17. It will support Syrian artists and showcase Syrian culture at Kensington Town Hall, as part of the Reel Syria 2012 festival which runs from March 15-18.

The months speed by, a new spring is about to burst upon us, but in that time news out of Syria has continued to go from bad to worse and our feelings about the Arab Spring have become somewhat jaded. On a personal level I am no closer to knowing what the international community, should do, but there is only so much wringing my hands can take.