ÖDERTÄLJE, Sweden — After screening his documentary film Son of Assyria in Gothenburg at the Swedish Cultural House, Syriac (Aramean-Assyrian-Chaldean) director Frank Gilbert headed to the city of Södertälje to present his film on 31 May 2026 at the Estrad movie theatre.
Explaining his choice for Södertälje, home to a large Syriac community, Gilbert told Swedish television SVT: “It is very important to screen the film in every city where the Assyrian people are present. This people remains without a homeland, and nothing remains for them except their name, identity, and history. Based on this, each one of us must defend our existence, entity, and Assyrian identity, and deliver this people’s voice to the entire world.”
Son of Assyria addresses the bloody massacres suffered by the Syriac people in 1843 in Hakkari, Turkey. It was named after a book written by the descendants of Malik Ismail, who was a leader known for his great courage at the time of those massacres.
Gilbert, now residing in Chicago, was born in 1981 in Kerkeslokh (Kirkuk), Iraq, and lived for years in Baghdad, where he began his work in filmmaking. After moving to the United States, he developed his directing skills and graduated from media school in Illinois. He worked in media for Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian television channels.
Gilbert has directed several documentaries and feature films, including Barkhonitha (2013), Journey of Eternity, Sorrows of Mary (2023), and Road to Urmi (2024). His works also include A Shrine Between the Monasteries (2009), Economic Collapse (2010), Mountains of Wheat and Escape from Babylon (2011), in addition to directing music videos for several Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian singers.
