Winner of the European Short Film Award at the European Film Awards. In August 2012, Syrian photographer Issa Touma awoke to the dawn of the rebel uprising in the city of Aleppo. He spent the next nine days holed up in his apartment, filming the emerging civil war outside.
“It’s 8:15 AM”, says Touma, recording the morning sky and fading moon through his window, on a day that signalled a turning point for life in Syria’s largest city. “Strangers take position in my street.” he says, “they look unprepared, without any kind of war experience”. Young men in t-shirts, resembling students more than fighters, drag sandbags into a blockade below Touma’s window. A rebel appeals by loudspeaker to a regime soldier, “leave your post and come to us!”. He is answered by the sound of gunfire. Touma’s raw commentary and eye for photographic detail give an unprecedented glimpse into the beginnings of a war that rages to this day.
