Last Men in Aleppo (2017)

With debris as far as the eye can see, a group of heroic volunteers stay in Aleppo to help rescue those injured by the devastating bomb attacks.

Amidst the sirens, explosions and the endless rubble of Aleppo, a city decimated by five years of conflict, a small organisation of volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets dig their heels into the city to try to rescue as many lives as possible, but also to retrieve the dead. In the chaos, three men – Khalid, Subhi and Mahmoud – struggle with the harrowing choice of fight or flight.

As a piece of boots-on-the-ground journalism Last Men in Aleppo offers an incredible amount of insight into the Syrian Civil War not through geopolitical context, but by a gut-wrenching immersion into life on the ground and by devastating us with a reminder of the overwhelming loss of human life.

Feras Fayyad’s heart-breaking and inspiring documentary is as vital today as it was when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, where it won the Grand Jury Prize.