"The War Show" Documentary by Obaidah Zytoon & Andreas Dalsgaard

- Sujoy 

Are you keep protesting?

- Sure.

For how long?

- Until the regime falls.

Are you not afraid?

- Not at all.

Dreaming of the regime's fall.

"The regime's biggest fear is those who hold cameras."

"Sometimes a camera can inspire a Hero."

A Syrian radio DJ, Andreas Dasgaar, documents Syria during the arab spring, the experience of herself and her friends.

The documentary is distributed in seven parts:

1. Revolution 

2. Suppression 

3. Resistance 

4. Siege

5. Memories

6. Frontline 

7. Extremism

The Arab world was suffering from financial crises. People were suffering from poverty, unemployment. Banners of liberation were roaming around in all the demonstrations at all times. "Syria belongs to us, not to the Asad family." On every street, localities celebrated people’s resistance, resistance to familial dictatorship. One little girl interviewed, "I prefer to die. ... I will feel relieved. I can ask whatever I want from god. It is better than facing a dictatorship."

As a consequence of the movement, state repression came along. "Demonstrations turned into funerals, with more martyrs at every funeral." It was a watershed moment: "You are either with the revolution, or with the regime". A barrage of fake propaganda was spread. The regime TV showed that Syria was fine. 

"One! one! one!

The Syrian people are one!"

"I hid. I framed the image according to the opposite media requirement."

Is the girl's hair short? Is it?

- Yes. She was standing next to you.

Are they shooting at the people?

- Yes.

A deep, dark sadness engulfed the streets and families. In the interview, one little girl said (holding his photo close to her heart),

"...... and before he(uncle) went out, said, 'You'll hear good news soon'. Then he went to the demonstration. ...... My uncle died a martyr." --She cried.

What would you say to him (uncle) now?

-"Aren't you coming for my birthday?"

One man shared his experience about police interrogation on a camera :

Police: "....... Define Freedom"

Man: "I've never tasted freedom in my life."

Police: "So you can't define it.... So why are you chanting freedom then?"

Man: "No one born and raised in Syria can define Freedom. Because they never experienced it."

The people were arrested, tortured with electric shocks, and electric sticks. Regime TV was moving around. 

"Why don't you film them(my children)?" One said?

-"He doesn't want martyrs' children on TV," Another one said.

Wherever the director went to film, to interview the locals, most of them were survivors of brutal firing by the regime. They had severe bullet marks on their body. While interviewing the police and army, they said that they were ordered to fire on the demonstrators. If they didn't take up the guns toward the demonstrators, they would be penalised with the same bullets.

She filmed the good memories with her friends, who were killed, labelled as terrorists. One of the bodies was recovered from an infamous military hospital. His family was forced to sign a document saying that the terrorist Houssam's body was found in Jobar. Houssam faced brutal torture, that they even erased his identifying features. They pulled his nails out, stripped his skin off.

Syria was turned into a battlefront, where arms training had become common in families and localities. A man was training his little children. He interviewed:

...... Alhamdulillah, I have 4 children.

But aren't you afraid he'll become an armed man?

- I want him to be armed, but armed in a proper manner.

The main goal of the movement was to establish a democratic state. A peaceful protest was organised, demanding a civil state, but there was a separate section of people, who were the extremists, demanding for Islamic Caliphate.

The regime wanted to label everyone in the opposition as terrorists. So it released criminals and extremists from prison, with the intention of creating violence in the name of revolution and the religion of Islam.

"We don't allow women to come to this town in this way. If they want to film Saraqeb and the humanitarian issues that they speak of, then let them send a man, or a modest woman."

"We are modest than all of you. Is this your Islam says?"

Extremism incorporated the movement, inequality, and violence started in the name of Islam. The worst destruction of movement started, never could have imagined.

The dream that every martyr, every protester has seen, has vanished. Extremism hijacked the whole movement, turned it into its own discourse of propagating hatred by means of extremism.

This documentary gives a glimpse of the ARAB SPRING, how the movement started, how the civil movement turned into violence, and how extremist nature was later developed by the government. This reminds Bangladesh July movement, and many other movements that have happened. The list still continues.......