In 2007, a Syrian journalism student arrived in Damascus to take an exam with a secret escape plan. The SIM card was hidden in his shoes and his mobile phone in his underwear. As soon as she entered the building, she texted her friends who were waiting outside. After some time, she fled a violent forced marriage and went into hiding.
That student is Daro Hansen, whose debut feature Little Sinner, co-directed with Danish director and editor Thomas Papapetros, will have its world premiere at the Book Competition at Copenhagen International Airport on March 15th. Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX.
Spanning almost two decades, the film is based on an extensive archive of personal material shot in Syria, Denmark, Lebanon and Greece. What began as documentary fragments gradually evolved into an intimate portrait of Hansen’s struggle to confront a traumatic past that included forced marriage, family betrayal, and exile.
The story begins with Hansen agreeing to the engagement, believing it to be a temporary engagement to protect his family’s honor. Instead, she found herself trapped in a violent marriage.
In one episode she recounts in the film, Hansen says her husband tried to scalp her. She says that moment was the turning point when she realized she had to run away to survive.
She eventually moved to Denmark with the support of her Danish boyfriend, Toke, who helped her escape and remained a central figure in her life for many years. However, the psychological effects of what happened hit her. When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, her trauma resurfaced. Drawn to the unfolding refugee crises in Lebanon and Greece, she repeatedly abandoned the stability she found in Denmark to devote herself to humanitarian work.
She said it took her years to realize that the deepest wound was not the violence itself, but the moment her mother failed to protect her and sent her back to her violent husband, whom she called a “monster.”
That realization forms the emotional core of “Little Sinner.”
“Meeting these people, their strength and way of life made a deep impression on me,” she says of working with refugees. “In their stories, I recognized things about myself, but also things I hadn’t had the courage to see yet. It became clear that I was actually doing the opposite to them. While they were daring me to stay in the pain, talk about it, and try to work through it, I was running away from my own pain.”
“If there’s a simple message I want people to take from this movie, it’s that I found a shorter path back to myself than the path I took,” she told Variety.
Hansen, who grew up in a non-Muslim household, wants to emphasize that this is a story about social control, not faith.
“Many people associate forced marriage with Islam, but it’s a matter of tradition. Social control exists in all cultures. It’s here in Denmark, it’s in the United States, it’s in China.”
Papapetros and Hansen first met in 2012, when Papapetros was working on a documentary about the Syrian conflict and Hansen was hired as an interpreter. The two continued to work together in Lebanon, where Hansen led filmmaking workshops with refugees.
Their work on Lesbos began almost by chance after Mr. Hansen was expelled from Lebanon. Upon hearing that refugees were beginning to arrive on the Greek island, the two traveled there and soon found themselves participating in a humanitarian aid effort in the midst of a migrant crisis.
Papapetros began filming Hansen almost instinctively.
“When I learned about Daro and her story, I felt it was important to also film her in that situation,” he says. “It was instinctive. It wasn’t planned.”
Much of the footage used in this film was not originally intended as a documentary. Hansen had been filming for years, often using the camera as a personal coping mechanism.
“It’s a very private matter,” she says. “Sometimes I’ve used the camera as therapy.”
After years of building a vast archive themselves, Hansen and Papapetros (himself an award-winning editor of Anders Ostergaard’s “Burma VJ” at Sundance) finally realized they needed an outside perspective.
They invited editor Michael Aaglund to participate in the final stages of post-production.
“We agreed that Michael would have the final say,” Papapetros said. “He’s kind of become an ambassador for the movie.”
The arrival of Hansen and Papapetros’ son Lucas finally brought the documentary to a natural end.
“The last scene we recorded for the movie was Lucas’ birth,” Papapetros said. “When it was in the box, we said, ‘Okay, this is it.'”
The title reflects Hansen’s interpretation of her journey, which she describes as “little sinners,” not the acts of wrongdoing toward others, but the quiet betrayals of oneself. “Early in life, we learn to be responsible for the family atmosphere and the relationships around us. We often go beyond our limits for others, but in doing so we forget to check our own bodies and intuition. Sometimes we completely forget about ourselves, and that for me is the real sin. I forgot about myself. I let myself down.”
Produced by Thor Hampus Bank of Danish production company GotFat Productions, “Little Sinner” was supported by the Danish Film Institute, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, West Denmark Film Fund, Arab Arts and Culture Fund, and International Media Support.
CPH:DOX will be held in Copenhagen until March 22nd.
