Around ten minutes into When You Can’t Go Back, a documentary illustrating the struggles of a young Syrian student as he acclimates to life in Europe, there is a scene showing the protagonist, Obaida Hanteer, on a tram in Rome. The Colosseum and the city’s ancient walls pass by in the background during a voice-over of him reading from a letter to his family.

“Since the last time we saw each other a lot of things have changed in me,” he says. “Now I have cornetto and cappuccino for breakfast instead of tea, zaatar, and olives. I look forward to eating pasta and pizza, as I used to look forward to yabrak, kibbeh and shish barak when I was with you. Now I express my surprise by saying ‘Mamma mia!’ instead of ‘Ya yoom.’”

The contrast of cultural touchstones elicited laughs when the film was screened recently to Italian audiences. But to the documentary’s director, Leonardo Cinieri Lombroso, the scene represents a turning point.

“Getting used to the food, the expressions, it’s an important part of getting used to a new place,” Cinieri Lombroso said. “When Obaida recognized that change in himself, it meant he was settled in and really living in Italy.”

Learning a New Culture

The film starts several months before, with Hanteer’s arrival in Rome. He was forced to flee the violence in his home country in order to continue his studies, after he was accepted into a special program at Rome’s La Sapienza University. When he first arrived in the Italian capital he marveled at how similar Europeans were to Syrians: “They walk like us, they laugh like us, they have the same faces and the same expressions,” he said. “Why did I always think people in Europe were from outer space?”

The documentary, whose title in Italian is Quando non Puoi Tornare Indietro, goes light in discussing Hanteer’s academic struggles and focuses more on his cultural integration and his longing to be with his family. In the end, it offers a rare view of a Middle Eastern migrant’s success in a Western country. (See a related article, “A Journalist’s View of Europe’s Refugee Crisis.”)

Over time, Hanteer in many ways becomes one of the people he once viewed as alien. He learns Italian, finishes his master’s degree in computer science, and even participates in the Italian version of The Voice, a popular television talent program. (He makes it through two rounds, singing songs in Arabic.) Just as importantly, he creates meaningful relationships: In an interview, he said that Cinieri Lombroso and Dina Madi, who has a supporting role in the film and was in charge of the production’s musical elements, remain two of his closest friends.