Screenings of the film "Peace with Chocolate" will begin in "Cineplex" theaters across Canada starting May 6. It is not a one hundred percent biographical film, nor is it a pure documentary, nor is it even a fictional narrative film; rather, Peace with Chocolate has a unique form that intersects with all these cinematic genres.

The film's story originated from an exciting and cinematically thrilling success story achieved in reality by the Syrian Hadad family, refugees in Canada. Canadian director Jonathan Keijsers, of European father and American mother, will focus on bringing the Hadad family’s story to the big screen for two reasons explained by the young actor playing Tarek Hadad in the film, Aiham Abu Ammar.

The first reason is that the story itself constitutes rich cinematic material. The second reason is that the director wanted to present a token of gratitude to the hospitable and "kind" Canadian people who welcomed his "strange" family with all hospitality and warmth when they came to live in the same city where the Hadad family lives, Antigonish, located in the northeast of Nova Scotia Province (a new window) in Eastern Canada.

Before Jonathan Keijsers, the Hadad family was the focus of attention of all Canadians from the West to the Atlantic, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned the success story of this Syrian refugee family (a new window) on the podium of the United Nations during a summit on refugees held at the headquarters of the UN organization in New York City, USA in September 2016.

Fate allowed Hatem Ali to complete all the scenes of "Peace with Chocolate," but claimed him before he could enjoy being crowned as the "Best Actor." The prominent Syrian drama creator, artist Hatem Ali, passed away on December 29, 2020, after finishing filming all the scenes of Peace with Chocolate.

The final touches for the film’s release were being made when the pandemic stopped all cinematic activity and prevented its release in cinemas at the beginning of 2021. At this time, the film was presented in several special screenings and toured the world in numerous film festivals, most of which crowned Hatem Ali, who brilliantly portrayed the Syrian refugee Essam Hadad, with the Best Actor Award.

Aiham Abu Ammar considers that Hatem Ali’s acceptance to participate in this film was due to his full belief that the journey does not start from zero; on the contrary, with this film, he wanted to achieve a new and different experience with the makers of the seventh art in Canada. In addition, the speaker continued, "the role showed the true value of the late Syrian director, and the proof is that he won the Best Actor Award at more than one international festival."

Hatem Ali, the absent presence every time his name is mentioned, Aiham Abu Ammar choked up and sighed a long sigh. Hatem Ali’s presence in his life was no coincidence nor was it in vain; he had been preparing for this encounter since he was eighteen years old, and fate willed for them to meet after more than a decade far from their homeland, in a film documenting a Syrian success story in a foreign land.

Hatem Ali not only played the role of Aiham Abu Ammar’s father in the film’s story but also played the role of his spiritual father and the role model in cinema whose source never dries up. Aiham Abu Ammar also entered the country as a Syrian refugee and settled with his wife and daughter in the city of Montreal before the family was blessed with a second child.