Film: A Broken House

When Mohamad Hafez received a single-entry visa to study architecture in the United States, he realized if he couldn't return home to Syria, he could make home. A skilled architectural model-maker, he spent his years in exile sculpting life-like renditions of his Damascus neighborhood.

When the civil war broke out and his parents fled to the United States as refugees, Mohamad's bottled-up frustration erupted on his models. In a fit of mania, he broke his artworks, leaving them shattered, bombed-out replicas of the Syrian buildings he saw on the news. And yet, when word of his broken pieces spread, Mohamad became an inspiration to refugees and immigrants in the diaspora who dreamed of homes that only existed in memories.