Aleppo-Based Man Makes A Documentary By Filming The War Through His Bedroom Window

Suffering, they say, is an opportunity for creativity to prosper. Between the airstrikes, buildings crumbling and relinquishing and recapturing the control of Aleppo, Syrian curator and gallerist, Issa Touma, found an avenue for art.

Instead of fleeing war-torn Aleppo, he stayed put with his camera and filmed what was happening around him.

The Creators Project

Touma, while sat in his Aleppo home¡¯s perch, filmed Syrian rebels in the street below his house for nine days. And last year, he collaborated with Dutch filmmakers Floor van der Meulen and Thomas Vroege, to turn his footage into a short documentary titled ¡°From my window in Aleppo¡±, which won Best Short at the 2016 European Film Awards.

The Creators Project

¡°There is a lot of shit going on around the world, but people pay attention because I¡¯m coming from a wartorn country,¡± he told The Creators Project.

He wanted to document his experience of living through war because the future was so uncertain, which he says is a common feeling in Syria. The video, he felt, was the right way to go to accurately express what was going on and what people were going through. The world, he said, pays so much attention to the government and rebels, that civilians are somewhere forgotten along the way.

Representational image/Reuters

¡°Imagine if it happened in your city, with people shooting underneath your balcony for 24 hours. That¡¯s why I was shooting video. It¡¯s real war happening underneath your window. You¡¯re scared you might not survive,¡± he said.

His documentary, he says, ¡°is our story of what we¡¯re suffering¡±.

¡°This is the story of what happened.¡±