<p class="title">In a schoolyard of rural northeastern Syria, boys, and girls break out into giggles watching Charlie Chaplin's pranks, a rare treat thanks to a mobile cinema roving through the countryside.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In Kurdish-held areas of the northeast, filmmaker Shero Hinde is screening films in remote villages using just a laptop, projector and a canvas screen.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We've already shown films in towns but we wanted children in the villages to enjoy them too," said the bespectacled 39-year-old with thick greying curly hair.</p>.<p class="bodytext">With some films dubbed into Kurdish and others subtitled, he and a team of volunteers want to spread their love of cinema across Rojava, the Kurdish name of the semi-autonomous northeast of war-torn Syria.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Our goal is that in a year's time, there won't be a kid in Rojava who hasn't been to the cinema," the Kurdish filmmaker said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitting on coloured plastic chairs in the village of Sanjaq Saadun just before dusk, the boys and girls watch wide-eyed as the first black-and-white images of "The Kid" appear on the screen.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Lively piano music rings out across the school basketball court, as Chaplin plays a tramp who rescues an orphaned baby in the 1921 silent movie.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Laughter rises above the darkened playground as he tries to clean the baby's nose or to feed him from a kettle strung from the ceiling.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Across the Kurdish-held region, old cinemas once showed American B movies, Bollywood fare and porn, but they have lost their audiences and closed.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In local minds, cinema is also tied to tragedy, after a fire ripped through a theatre in the nearby town of Amuda in 1960, killing more than 280 children.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The mobile cinema, says Hinde, aims to introduce young children to the magic of the silver screen from the early days of moving pictures - something he missed out on as a schoolboy.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"When we were kids, the cinema was that dark place," said the filmmaker, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a green t-shirt.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In primary school, he and others were taken to see films inappropriate for their age and in substandard conditions, he recalled.</p>.<p class="bodytext">It was only later that he discovered "the truth and beauty of cinema".</p>.<p class="bodytext">To give today's children a different experience, "we're now trying to substitute that darkness for something beautiful and colourful", he said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The mobile cinema's objective is also to screen "films linked to protecting the environment and personal freedoms", Hinde said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">On another evening in the village of Shaghir Bazar, children rushed in before the film started to grab front-row seats.</p>.<p class="bodytext">On show that day was "Spirit", an American animated adventure film about a wild stallion captured by humans who dreams of breaking free and returning to his herd.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Among the audience, Amal Ibrahim said her son Kaddar, seven, and daughter Ayleen, six, were brimming with excitement.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"They could hardly wait to come. They've never been to the cinema before," she said in Kurdish.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Even some of the village's older men had turned up to see the cartoon adventure, after not having been to the cinema in decades.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Standing to one side, they reminisced about the films of their youth.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Adnan Jawli, 56, came along with his two children. "Today, I brought my kids to the cinema and all my memories are flooding back," he said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Forty years ago, I would go to the cinema and watch the film from outside through the window," said Jawli.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"It was such a great feeling when the lights dimmed and the film started." Hinde's own credits include "Stories of Destroyed Cities", a feature-length film about three towns in Syria and Iraq on the road to recovery after Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State group.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Apart from spearheading the defeat of the jihadists, Syria's Kurds have largely stayed out of the country's eight-year war, instead of working towards autonomy after decades of marginalisation.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Though Kurdish-led fighters are still battling sleeper cells, Hinde and his team are already looking to the future. Beyond their roving cinema, they dream of opening a movie theatre at a fixed location.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"But that will depend on the war ending and stability returning to the country," he said. </p>
<p class="title">In a schoolyard of rural northeastern Syria, boys, and girls break out into giggles watching Charlie Chaplin's pranks, a rare treat thanks to a mobile cinema roving through the countryside.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In Kurdish-held areas of the northeast, filmmaker Shero Hinde is screening films in remote villages using just a laptop, projector and a canvas screen.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We've already shown films in towns but we wanted children in the villages to enjoy them too," said the bespectacled 39-year-old with thick greying curly hair.</p>.<p class="bodytext">With some films dubbed into Kurdish and others subtitled, he and a team of volunteers want to spread their love of cinema across Rojava, the Kurdish name of the semi-autonomous northeast of war-torn Syria.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Our goal is that in a year's time, there won't be a kid in Rojava who hasn't been to the cinema," the Kurdish filmmaker said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Sitting on coloured plastic chairs in the village of Sanjaq Saadun just before dusk, the boys and girls watch wide-eyed as the first black-and-white images of "The Kid" appear on the screen.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Lively piano music rings out across the school basketball court, as Chaplin plays a tramp who rescues an orphaned baby in the 1921 silent movie.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Laughter rises above the darkened playground as he tries to clean the baby's nose or to feed him from a kettle strung from the ceiling.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Across the Kurdish-held region, old cinemas once showed American B movies, Bollywood fare and porn, but they have lost their audiences and closed.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In local minds, cinema is also tied to tragedy, after a fire ripped through a theatre in the nearby town of Amuda in 1960, killing more than 280 children.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The mobile cinema, says Hinde, aims to introduce young children to the magic of the silver screen from the early days of moving pictures - something he missed out on as a schoolboy.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"When we were kids, the cinema was that dark place," said the filmmaker, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a green t-shirt.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In primary school, he and others were taken to see films inappropriate for their age and in substandard conditions, he recalled.</p>.<p class="bodytext">It was only later that he discovered "the truth and beauty of cinema".</p>.<p class="bodytext">To give today's children a different experience, "we're now trying to substitute that darkness for something beautiful and colourful", he said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The mobile cinema's objective is also to screen "films linked to protecting the environment and personal freedoms", Hinde said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">On another evening in the village of Shaghir Bazar, children rushed in before the film started to grab front-row seats.</p>.<p class="bodytext">On show that day was "Spirit", an American animated adventure film about a wild stallion captured by humans who dreams of breaking free and returning to his herd.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Among the audience, Amal Ibrahim said her son Kaddar, seven, and daughter Ayleen, six, were brimming with excitement.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"They could hardly wait to come. They've never been to the cinema before," she said in Kurdish.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Even some of the village's older men had turned up to see the cartoon adventure, after not having been to the cinema in decades.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Standing to one side, they reminisced about the films of their youth.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Adnan Jawli, 56, came along with his two children. "Today, I brought my kids to the cinema and all my memories are flooding back," he said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Forty years ago, I would go to the cinema and watch the film from outside through the window," said Jawli.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"It was such a great feeling when the lights dimmed and the film started." Hinde's own credits include "Stories of Destroyed Cities", a feature-length film about three towns in Syria and Iraq on the road to recovery after Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State group.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Apart from spearheading the defeat of the jihadists, Syria's Kurds have largely stayed out of the country's eight-year war, instead of working towards autonomy after decades of marginalisation.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Though Kurdish-led fighters are still battling sleeper cells, Hinde and his team are already looking to the future. Beyond their roving cinema, they dream of opening a movie theatre at a fixed location.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"But that will depend on the war ending and stability returning to the country," he said. </p>