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Obaidah Zytoon, a radio host with big dreams for her country,
was full of hope for freedom when she started filming the
demonstrations that broke out against President Bashar al-Assad
in March 2011. Five years later, she is in Copenhagen living as
a refugee.
Zytoon is one of the lucky ones. Most of her friends did not
make it out of Syria alive.
Much of the death and destruction documented in Zytoon's
hometown of Zabadani in the film is eerily similar to images
coming out of the battle of Aleppo this week, where Syrian
government forces and their allies finally broke rebel
resistance to hand Assad his biggest victory of the civil war.
"What remains is the crime," Zytoon narrates as she watches dogs
eating a dead sheep amidst the death and destruction of war.
The War Show, which premiered in the Middle East this week at
the Dubai Film Festival, is a disturbing documentary that
compiles footage shot inside Syria from 2011 to 2013, taking
viewers through a journey of euphoria and revolution to
disappointment and despair.
In one scene at the beginning, the friends sit together at a
Damascus apartment smoking hash and discussing revolution. "By
2014, we will all be free," one of them says. Another replies
that by 2014 they will all be dead.
The harrowing effect is amplified as viewers become deeply
involved in the lives of Houssam, Hisham, Lulu, Rabea, Amal and
Argha, joyful young Syrians who fall in love, play heavy metal,
go to the beach and dream big, only to meet tragic ends.
"You were the love of his life, you know," Zytoon tells her
friend Lulu in Turkey after they discover that Hisham, who had
gone missing for years after being picked up at a checkpoint,
had died in prison after repeated torture.
Rabea, a musician who Zytoon described as "universal" in his
views on life, gets assassinated in his car. He is found dead by
his sister, who desperately tries to put part of his shattered
forehead together to bring him back to life.
Zytoon collaborated with Danish filmmaker and co-director
Andreas Dalsgaard to bring those stories to life after meeting
him in Turkey and showing him the footage.
"I hope the rest of the world can see the film and have a deeper
understanding of what a Syrian leaving their country is forced
to leave: what is it that they carry inside, and what was the
experience emotionally that they are dealing with," Dalsgaard
told Reuters in Dubai.
He said that unlike mainstream media coverage, which can
desensitise viewers, the documentary was important in putting a
face to the tragedy and revealing a story behind the pain.
"I see pictures from Aleppo, and everyone from around the world
sees pictures of Aleppo, but there’s no human connection," he
said. "It destroys our senses. And only when we start
understanding each other, and connect deeper on a human level,
can our senses come alive."
(Reporting by Maha El Dahan; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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