‘Despicable Me 3’
Rated PG — Gru discovers he has a charming and cheerful twin brother who wants to team up for one final heist. Steve Carell, Jenny Slate and Kristen Wiig lead the voice cast.
When bombs exploded in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the survivors would seek cover.
But the 2,900 members of the Syrian Civil Defence Forces — known as the “White Helmets” — would run toward the destruction, searching the wreckage for survivors.
As they worked, more bombs sometimes exploded.
The dangerous labors of the crews are chronicled in “Last Men in Aleppo,” set to begin screening Friday at the Gateway Film Center.
Syrian-born filmmaker Feras Fayyad, now living in Denmark with his wife and daughter, directed the movie, which won the Grand Jury Prize for world documentaries at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
According to The Washington Post and the news agency Al Jazeera, peaceful protests against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad resulted in 2011 in the deaths or imprisonment of hundreds of protesters. A few months later, former military members formed the Free Syrian Army, and civil war began.
The next year, rebel forces captured portions of Aleppo, once among Syria’s largest cities, and warplanes began to bomb the city. The rebel-held area of the city was put under siege, and Friday
in December, according to Reuters, Assad declared victory in Aleppo.
Reuters reported that rebel-held eastern Aleppo had been reduced to rubble, making a death toll difficult to pin down. On June 13, however, CNN cited United Nations estimates: Some 400,000 Syrians have died nationwide since the war began, more than 5 million Syrians have fled the country and 6.3 million refugees remain in Syria.
Filming of “Last Men in Aleppo” took place between September 2015 and autumn 2016. Because of the siege, Fayyad said he wasn’t able to enter Aleppo, but his four-person crew — including cinematographers Thaer Mohammed and Mojahed Abo Aljood — was already in place.
The movie centers on two members of the White Helmets: Khaled, a former painter and decorator who is married with two young daughters; and Mahmoud, a young single man and a former philosophy student at a university with a beloved younger brother who sometimes follows him into action.
They remain determined to stay in their city, a commitment underscored in the film when one member of the White Helmets asks another whether he plans to leave Aleppo.
“Yes,” his friend responds, “to the cemetery.”
Fayyad wanted to tell a nonpolitical story about the group, whose motto is, “We act neutrally, impartially and for all Syrians.”
“I wanted to tell a story about what was the need and what they’re fighting for ... how much it affects their lives, their family lives,” he said during a Skype interview as he visited Sweden. “I didn’t make a film to explain how they work, why they don’t run. It’s their
work; it’s their jobs.”
In his homeland, Fayyad said, options are limited for Syrians.
“When you are in Syria, you don’t have another choice. You don’t do anything, or you can be a person of action to do something for your community.”
At times, the movie is difficult to watch. For every person rescued, several bodies — including those of children — are pulled from the rubble.
The film also follows the workers during their rare off hours, a time when doting father Khaled plays with his young daughters but also keeps a watchful eye for warplanes overhead.
Khaled agonizes over whether to send his family out of the dangers of Aleppo to a different place — with possibly a different set of dangers.
“The more I think about it,” he tells his brother, “the more I feel that it’s best to keep them near me. I’d rather they die before my eyes than have something happen to them far away. I would cry blood if that happened, honestly.”
Fayyad himself experienced danger. In 2011, he was arrested after filming protesters tearing down a portrait of Assad.
During two stints in prison, he served a combined eight months and was beaten and tortured — pain that only increased his resolve to make movies, he said.
“It makes me stronger. It makes me more of a fighter.”
After his release, he traveled to Jordan and Turkey before moving to Denmark, where he still doesn’t feel safe, he said.
Staying in Syria, though, wasn’t an option.
“I have two choices — arrested or killed, nothing more,”
Fayyad said. “What I believe in (is) justice and freedom of speech, so I couldn’t work as an artist.”
Making “Last Men in Aleppo” was his duty, he said.
“This is a responsibility for any filmmaker when he watches in front of him crimes against humanity,” Fayyad said. “You want to try to do something. I have good things in my hand. And I want to do something good for my community.
“That’s the only thing that I can do. That’s the only thing I can help with.”