A camera crew follows a Jihadi group for a week in Syria
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Michael Moore's view on how the Bush administration allegedly used the tragic events on 9/11 to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The White Helmets (2016)
As daily airstrikes pound civilian targets in Syria, a group of indomitable first responders risk their lives to rescue victims from the rubble.
This Rain Will Never Stop (2022)
This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of life and death.
Black Box Syria: The Dirty War (2020)
A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.
This Is Not a Movie: Robert Fisk and the Politics of Truth (2019)
For more than forty years, British journalist Robert Fisk has reported on some of the most violent conflicts in the world, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, always with his feet on the ground and a notebook in hand, travelling into landscapes devastated by war, ferreting out the facts and sending reports to the media he works for with the ambition of catching the interest of an audience of millions.
The Catastrophe Garden (2022)
It is a daring idea: to grow food from old mattresses in a desolate camp at the edge of a war zone. When a refugee scientist meets two quirky professors, they must confront their own catastrophes - and make a garden grow. Short film now streaming on Waterbear.com.
Beside Heroes (2016)
Wali, an ex-sniper, leaves Canada to fight the Islamic state. He meets two Americans: Rebaz and Zyrian. One is a veteran of the war in Iraq. The other is a homosexual idealist. They meet the Kurds, a welcoming people. Together, they will confront the fanatical Islamic terrorists. Beside Heroes, an uncensored documentary that tells the tale of three volunteer fighters who realized that to change the world, you have to act.
Also Known as Jihadi (2017)
Also Known as Jihadi follows the progress of a young man's journey from France to Syria, and back to France, where he is incarcerated for allegedly joining Daesh. Based on real events, and drawn from thousands of pages of judicial documents, the work employs the so-called landscape theory (fukeiron in Japanese). The character's paths to radicalism are rendered purely through a series of landscape shots filmed at the locations traversed by the subject: a biography determined not by what the subject did, but by what the subject saw, and one that questions how these landscapes reflect the social and political structures that are the backdrop for a journey of alienation and return.
American Jihad (2017)
Documentary probe into the phenomenon of home-grown Jihadism, analyzing the strategic outreach and tactics employed by terrorists in order to reach susceptible members of society and what can be done to prevent it. Featuring intimate stories from former Jihadists radicalized to commit violent acts of terrorism and their families and communities caught in the crosshairs.
Douma Underground (2019)
"With the barrel bombs falling on Ghouta, civilians sought shelter in the basements of their homes. I was one of them, holding on to my camera, I tried to film what I couldn’t express in words."
A Comedian in a Syrian Tragedy (2019)
As one of the most famous film and television actors in Syria, Fares Helou's political opinions aren't taken lightly by the Assad regime. When he stands by pro-democracy protesters in 2011, Fares makes a difference. Meanwhile, the highest ranking officials of the dictatorial regime try to win him over with a dual strategy: first by showing him respect, and then with masked threats. Fearing for his life and his family's safety, Helou leaves the country. But as soon as he's settled in Paris with his family, the pain of exile starts, along with an obsessive need to remain connected to Syria and to find a way to contribute. For Helou, exile means that his celebrity status now only survives on the internet, through social networks. While the family tries to find its footing in a totally new space and culture, the need to remain faithful to the dream of a free and democratic Syria becomes a matter of integrity-an existential quest.
The Story Won't Die (2021)
THE STORY WON’T DIE, from Award-winning filmmaker David Henry Gerson, is an inspiring, timely look at a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to protest and process what is currently the world’s largest and longest ongoing displacement of people since WWII. The film is produced by Sundance Award-winner Odessa Rae (Navalny). Rapper Abu Hajar, together with other creative personalities of the Syrian uprising, a post-Rock musician (Anas Maghrebi), members of the first all-female Syrian rock band (Bahila Hijazi + Lynn Mayya), break-dancer (Bboy Shadow), choreographer (Medhat Aldaabal), and visual artists (Tammam Azzam, Omar Imam + Diala Brisly), use their art to rise in revolution and endure in exile in this new documentary reflecting on a battle for peace, justice and freedom of expression. It is an uplifting and humanizing look at what it means to be a refugee in today’s world and offers inspiring and hopeful vantages on a creative response to the chaos of war.
Of Fathers and Sons (2017)
Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.
The Matchmaker (2022)
A unique interview with Tooba Gondal, the woman who groomed and lured scores of Western women to join ISIS. Using social media, she became a deadly matchmaker, recruiting a number of high-profile “jihadi brides” for ISIS militants in Syria: she allegedly helped organise the transporting of three British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, to Syria.
Birth of a Monster (2017)
For the past 12 years, journalist Paul Moreira has travelled extensively in Iraq. In this film, he goes in search of the men he filmed back in 2003 at the very beginning of the American occupation. Through their stories, and by tracing the roots of ISIS to the arrival of Abu Mousab Al-Zarqawi and America's handling of the resistance, he tells the story of how Iraq became such a fractured nation.
Among the Believers (2015)
An unsettling and eye opening exploration into the spread of the radical Islamic school Red Mosque, which trains legions of children to devote their lives to jihad, or holy war, from a very young age. With incredible access and chilling footage, Among the Believers is a timely and relevant look into the causes that have led to the growth of radical Islam in Pakistan and around the world.
The Mountain (2020)
While living in a deserted valley in eastern Lebanon, seven-year-old Rahaf describes the wonders of her past, present and future – without knowing the limits of her own imagination.
...and the father stayed in the war. Encounter with Syrian orphans (1990)
Director Junge was commissioned by the GDR in the country for the first time in the summer of 1970; his film In Syria auf Montage accompanies German engineers who train workers in the Homs textile factory. Shortly after filming ended, Hafez al-Assad put himself under the dictator. Twenty years later emerged ... the father stayed in the war over a youth club with Syrian orphans in Bad Saarow, whose fathers had died in the Lebanon war and accompanied them to Syria, where they were housed in separate, elite "schools of martyr children". Multi-faceted documents that oscillate between peaceful and tense, hopeful and unsettled.
Under the Wire (2018)
On 12 February 2012, two journalists entered war-ravaged Syria. One of them was celebrated Sunday Times war correspondent, Marie Colvin. The other was photographer, Paul Conroy. Their aim was to cover the plight of Syrian civilians trapped in Homs, a city under siege and relentless military attack from the Syrian army. Only one of them returned.