South of the Clouds

South of the Clouds is a 1950 black and white short documentary film produced by the Protestant Film Commission. Filmed on the campus of the Beirut College for Women, it depicts the progress made by Christian missionary education in the Near East. The story focuses on a Muslim young woman from an aristocratic family who rooms with an orphan Lebanese Christian girl at the college and broadens her personal outlook through education, Christian fellowship, and community service. The film was developed in response to a request by Protestant mission boards functioning under the Missionary Education Movement to assist in their promotion of overseas missionary education. It was distributed through the Religious Film Association for rental to denominational churches throughout the United States. Synopsis Through voice-over narration, Najla, a sheltered girl from an aristocratic Muslim family in Damascus, retells her desire to go to college and her traditional family's grudging acquiescence. Najla immediately feels out of place when she arrives at the Beirut College for Women and witnesses the lack of formality, the democratic milieu of a student body composed of girls from all religions and nationalities, the easy camaraderie between girls and boys, and the outgoing personality of her roommate, a Lebanese Christian orphan named Suad who has been raised by her grandmother. Najla immerses herself in her studies and slowly gets used to fellowship activities with the other students. Najla is again perturbed when the girls travel to a village to help doctors attend to the sick and needy. Najla feels she is unable to relate to others' suffering because of her privileged family background, but Suad encourages her that God wants her to help others. Najla's feelings begin to change when she interacts with underprivileged yet happy children in a neighborhood program. She decides to join Suad as a volunteer in the village during the summer and, while Suad teaches young children, Najla discovers her talents as a nurse. She prays with the rest of the volunteers under the guidance of the pastor and feels a commonality with them. She muses that while she used to live "in the clouds", enjoying a life of privilege, she has discovered life "south of the clouds", interacting with other people and trying to meet their needs.