City of Ghosts

This documentary is based around the media group RBSS and as such whilst a fascinating account of a group of proud and brave individuals it doesn't have the scope to be truly great filmmaking. Some of the footage is truly shocking and for those that want to reject immigrants, political asylum seekers they really need to watch this film. They obviously won't though and you can't help feel this is preaching to the converted. My heart goes out to these guys and their beloved city though....

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

In March of 2012, the Arab Spring uprising occurred in the city of Raqqa, Syria, where Bashir Al Assad's tyrannical regime was overthrown, and the people made a grab for the independence and freedom that had been denied to them for so long. Unfortunately, it ended up creating a vacuum, that resulted in the Islamic State taking over and grinding the city to a halt, as they enforced their barbaric and savage 'caliphate.' Several men, however, calling themselves 'Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently', banded together and resolved to expose ISIS's savagery to the world, as a result enduring terrible sacrifice and placing their lives in danger.

While the rest of the world lives in a heightened sense of danger and alert over ISIS's next terror attack, it's still easy for life to carry on and go about their daily business. It's hard to picture a world where they are the total domineering force, a place which they have completely taken control of and imposed their savage, insane will on. And yet, if you were to ask any group of people to name the one place where this has happened, Raqqa would probably instantly spring to mind. Like Rwanda in the early 90s, it's the place everyone knows about, but we're all guilty of ignoring as long as we have our nice life.

Matthew Heineman, director of the equally enthralling 2015 drug-war drama Cartel Land, plunges us into this unimaginable world, with City of Ghosts, depicting the plight of a group of brave men living on the frontline of this devastating life, risking everything to highlight the atrocities of ISIS in their homeland. We are given unflinching access, as the terror group enact live executions in the streets, capture their friends and taunt them over the internet, including streaming the live murder of one of their fathers. These are educated men, from Raqqa's middle classes and trained journalists, who have to live life on the edge and constantly think on their feet, thinking one step ahead of their enemies.

Heineman has displayed a real talent for making these exposing, frontline dramas, of men and societies living on the edge, that keep you on the edge of your seat far more than any modern Hollywood dross ever could. ****

"City of Ghosts" (2017 release; 93 min.) is a documentary about the city of Raqqa under the dictatorship of ISIS, and a group of citizen journalists determined to expose the atrocities to the world. As the movie opens, we see one of the citizen journalists of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) getting ready to accept the 2015 CPJ International Press Freedom Award in New York. We then go back in time, to the Arab Spring events, when Raqqa ran the Assad regime out of town, only to then get overrun by ISIS. A small group of citizen journalists puts clandestine footage on the internet, showing what ISIS really is doing. Fearing for their lives, some of them flee Raqqa (to Turkey and Germany), "and that's when the real war between us and ISI began", says one of them. At this point we're 15 min. into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from producer-writer-director Matthew Heineman, whose previous documentary, the outstanding "Cartel Land" got an Oscar nomination (and should've won, but that's just me). As soon as I saw his name associated with this, I knew we would be in for one riveting film. And I was right. Filmed mostly in 2014-15, it gives a chilling account of what the ISIS regime truly is like. Beware: there is gruesome and shocking footage (much of which was shown blurred in US mainstream media) so this is not for the faint of heart. But it is so important that the world becomes better aware what really is going on there. The real heroes of this film are of course the RBSS journalists who are secretly filming the events in Raqqa and then transmit the footage to the RBSS journalists in Turkey and Germany. Each and every one of them somehow needs to deal with living each day knowing that ISIS would like to do nothing better than to kill every single one of them. I cannot even begin to imagine what that must feel like.

"City of Ghosts" premiered to universal critical acclaim at this year's Sundance Film Festival. No idea why it's taken so long for this to get released in theaters, but the film finally opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The Sunday early afternoon screening where I saw this at turned out to be a private screening. I literally was the only person there, sad to say. I happen to love a good documentary, and when it is about a topic as important as this one, that only makes it better. If you have any interest in understanding what is going on in Raqqa, Syria, by all means make sure to catch this movie, be it in the theater, on VD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray.

There are many that feel that this generation's access to data has in some way watered down the power of media. In a world where everything is RIGHT NOW, traditional media like print is dying on the vine. While this may be true of things like newspapers and magazines, the media is finally becoming more savvy and not only embracing a digital age that they found to be beneath them and more "bush league," they are also finding that this new age gives more opportunity to get to stories that they could not because of things like notoriety and old school methods. In "Cartel Land" director Matthew Heineman's new film "City of Ghosts," this subject is given a very up close and personal examination in a setting that is jarring, frightening, and heartbreaking.

In the city of Raqqa in Iraq just a few years ago, the Assad regime fell to its rebellion, and the people who lived there felt like a new age was upon them. Unfortunately, that new age came in the form of ISIS, whose strong arm tactics and extremist beliefs caused oppression, violence, and murder within its city walls. A group of oppositionists both in and out of the city began a group called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), and used the power of social media and the Internet to take the story of their city public. This would resort in their plight being broadcast worldwide through large media outlets, but the cost would be steep for them by way of exile, assassinations, and being constantly on the run from an organization that wants each and every one of them dead, even to the point of facing ridicule from the countries that they run to as it pertains not to just them but any kind of immigration from other countries, showing the effects of some of the same issues that we currently face in ours.

As I was watching "City of Ghosts," there was only one word that kept running through my mind, and that word is simply: powerful. Heineman pulls no punches with this film, showing the pain and suffering of the people in Raqqa and how it effects the leaders of RBSS. The balance that his subjects display of both the immense courage it takes to lead a movement like this as well as the human sides of themselves dealing with loss of family, friends, and even their freedom on a certain level is nothing short of brilliant. I was glued to the screen the entire time and while there are no twists or turns per se, this story kept me guessing all the way through as ISIS tries at every turn to suppress their message from destroying all satellite dishes in an effort to shut down their internet access in the city to threatening (and even killing in some cases) those close to them. There is also a very interesting look at ISIS and how they use their own methods of communication to bring people into their ranks that is honest (and I know this sounds odd, but roll with me here) unbiased. What I mean there is that the filmmakers simply show the actual footage that the group has published without doctoring it up, and trust me when I say this: it totally speaks for itself.

I was consistently fascinated by the resilience of RBSS' people inside the city to get the footage that they did to show the world the pain and suffering that those who stand against their oppressors go through, to the point of long lines of children who are just trying to get a bucket filled with soup to feed them and their families. I cannot imagine the constant fear that they have to overcome to tell their stories by putting their lives in danger every day. "City of Ghosts" is one of those films that although it will get a limited run due to the fact that documentaries don't tend to get the widespread theatrical love that they deserve in most cases, it demands the attention and respect that it deserves. Whether caught theatrically, via Blu-Ray or DVD, or through streaming, this is a film that is worth the time to watch and be discussed on any scale if for no other reason than the awareness that it needs to foster of not only the dangers of extremism but also the courage it takes to stand for what you believe in and the message that every group of people, no matter how you look at it, has a dark side and a light side, and we all need to see that for what it is. Celebrate the good, rebuke the bad, and try to get through all of it as one group of people embracing our diversity and doing our best to understand our differences.

Very trajic. Empowering people. A heartfelt film. Shows the power of human connection and what we can accomplish.