HUMANITARIAN AWARD - Immigration Film Festival, Washington DC
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - RAW SCIENCE Film Festival, Los Angeles
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM - 2020 SCI-ON Film Festival, Nevada
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - 2020 AFMX Festival, New Mexico
AUDIENCE AWARD - Common Good International Film Festival, Oregon
NOMINEE - BEST DOC SHORT - AFIN Intl. Film Festival, Australia
HONORABLE MENTION - International Migration and Environmental FF, Canada
AWARD WINNER - Red Rock Film Festival, Utah
FINALIST - USA Film Festival
FINALIST - Rome PRISMA Film Festival, Italy
OFFICIAL SELECTION:
Canberra Mental Health Film Festival, Australia
CHAIN New York Film Festival
Global Peace Film Festival, Florida
The Hague Global Cinema Festival, The Netherlands
Malta Film Festival
Ontario International Film Festival, Canada
Socially Relevant Film Festival, New York
Venice Intercultural Film Festival, Italy
Social Justice Film Festival, Seattle
Terror and Hope: The Science of Resilience is a story about children and war. It’s about stress so severe and prolonged it can become toxic. It’s about scientists and humanitarians working to provide hope in what can seem like a pretty hopeless world. And it’s the story of courageous Syrian families raising their children in the face of violence and oppression - their past defined by terror, their future driven by hope.
A Documentary Film by Ron Bourke
How to watch the film
Many American Public Broadcast stations are airing the film. Contact your local PBS station for date and time.
Click the blue button to order the expanded DVD version of Terror and Hope. The DVD includes a brief history of the Syrian conflict and a look at an American program working to help traumatized Syrian child refugees. For private home viewing only. See below for educational, commercial or institutional viewing.
Free online viewing of Terror and Hope is available in through the KANOPY streaming service. 4,000 libraries and universities world-wide offer access to this streaming platform through the free Kanopy app. All you need is a library card or university login from a participating institution.
Digital site and public screening licenses are available to universities, schools, private and governmental organizations and libraries from COLLECTIVE EYE FILMS.
Praise for Terror and Hope
"In this amazing exploration into the experience of displaced Syrians we discover the truth about resilience, that it demands a collective effort if people are to recover and grow. As we come to see, to be compassionate is to help another build resilience.”
Michael Ungar, Ph.D.
Director, Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University
Author of Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and the True Path to Success
“I was very impressed with the film and its unique angle. In my experience as a global health research and policy analyst, most films about humanitarian crises, even those related to health, are mainly about disaster relief and immediate response. Very few films that I am aware of have a research lens. I think a screening would be a unique opportunity for my colleagues to understand the meaningful and personal impact research can have.”
- Blythe Beecroft
"I found “Terror and Hope” to be very powerful. I really appreciated the strong focus in the film on the science behind what these children experience. The film has an excellent balance of portraying the loss but also presenting the hope from a scientific lens. It’s also so nice to meet the people who work on the ground and see their really clear passion for their work."
Mohamad Elfakhani, MD, BSc, FRCPC
Site Chief Psychiatry - London Health Sciences Centre, Ontario, Canada
Featuring the photography of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Muhammed Muheisen
Current neurological and behavioral science offers insights that could have a lasting impact on how we help these children of war to break the cycle of violence. For peace to be even remotely possible, we will need a generation of young people with the capacity to positively adapt to adversity.
Terror and Hope follows biocultural researchers from Yale, Harvard and Hashemite Universities; Humanitarian program developers and coordinators in the U.S. and Jordan; and most notably, young researchers and humanitarian volunteers. If there’s hope for the future of refugee children and youth, it’s due in large part to the teams of aid workers and researchers putting science to work for the oppressed and vulnerable. Terror and Hope tells their story.
Science Fueled by Compassion
"Highly Recommended" Educational Media Reviews Online 12/2020
"Perhaps one of the most powerful moments this semester was while watching the “Terror and Hope” video. In this video, a particular quote stuck out to me: 'Your biggest strength as a human is your compassion. If we don’t have compassion for ourselves, and we don’t have compassion for others, we are lost' This revelation led me to think about the video long after I had stopped watching. Once compassion is established, experiences are enriched and, through true understanding and collaboration, results become more feasible."
- Rachel Kleiman, Student, University of Richmond
Photo © Ron Bourke 2017
Selected Screenings
In addition to film festival screenings, the following organizations have sponsored screenings of the film for their members, staff and interested stakeholders.
- National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center
- Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual Meeting
- American Baptist Churches USA, 2023 Biennial Mission Summit, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Special Thanks
To the many individuals and organizations that offered time and expertise to help to make this film possible including:
The Yale MacMillan Center, Catherine Panter-Brick, D.Phil.; Hashemite University, Rana Dajani, PHD; Harvard University, Alexandra Chen, Child Trauma Specialist; Mercy Corps, Lynn Hector, Matt Strang, Dina Sabbagh; Project Untangled, Dr. Omar Reda; and the many individuals listed on the Funders page.
TERROR & HOPE is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council