Still Recording

In 2011, Saeed and Milad decide to leave Damascus for Douma (in Eastern Ghouta) to take part in the Syrian revolution. Events move fast: Douma is liberated by the rebels, the revolutionary enthusiasm spreads among the young, then comes war, siege, famine… They filmed life in Douma for more than four years, from the initial euphoria to the distress and disenchantment that settled in over the years.

“When I got involved in the revolution as a photographer and cameraman, I constantly asked myself the same questions: who am I filming for? What audience will my images have? What use is art in this violent reality? What is its utility for the more simple modest people surrounding me, who are making the revolution and fighting, in the face of death?…
This film is an observation of what happened for us, for all my generation – one that believed in the Revolution. A reflection from a calm perspective, in an attempts to learn lost or forgotten lessons, pay tribute or make some excuses.
For me, the film conveys above all a desire to understand. It is both an attempt to understand the contradictions at play in the exceptional situation of war, and a search to define the word “artist”, and his or her position in society: what is art in a revolution, in war, in death?”

Saeed Al Batal