Happiness & Love: A True Story on WhatsApp (2023)

Layla Faraj has childhood memories filled with visiting her family in Syria every summer. But when the Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011, those trips came to an abrupt end. Unable to be together physically, Layla’s family sought a safe space to recreate the intimacy of gathering. What they found was a way to move through their everyday lives as one—creating new memories together, even from afar. The short film, directed by the Iranian-American filmmaker Mohammad Gorjestani, follows the story of Layla Faraj, as she managed to stay connected to her family through a WhatsApp group chat amid the Syrian civil war, an ongoing armed conflict that began amid the Arab Spring protests of 2011.

The film was launched at a Ramadan dinner at Huda Brooklyn hosted by WhatsApp and Zaynab Issa, acclaimed recipe developer.