Hope under the rubble

Oscar-nominated documentary shorts, program B

I start a long shorts weekend in Aleppo, looking for clues why all Syrians are personae non gratae in Trump's America. I seem to lack the brainpower to figure it out.

Crit

• Watani: My Homeland--OK, well, yeah: Abu Ali is a machine-gun toting militia commander; other things being equal, I'm all for keeping machine gun toters as far away from me as possible. But he totes his machine gun for the anti-Assad, anti-Daesh (ISIS) Free Syrian Army, the closest you get to the Good Guys. And anyway, by the midway point of the film, Abu Ali has been disappeared by Daesh, leaving his wife and their 4 children--a teenage girl, a preteen boy, and 2 young girls--to flee to the welcoming arms of Angela Merkel. Now it's true that little Farah and Sara, having grown up in close proximity to Dad at work, treat their toy guns like children of a lawyer might treat their toy briefcases, and play games of Daesh vs. Infidel, but I'd still choose them as neighbors in preference to some neighbors I actually have. They are, in short, a loving family who have gone through hell and have remained a loving family. Clearly a security threat.
• The White Helmets--These guys, on the other hand, are batshit crazy: when Assad's army launches a mortar or Putin's air force drops a missile into Aleppo, they leap into their vehicles and drive at breakneck speed--TO the bomb sight. Their thing is risking their lives to save others' lives, and they're very good at it. Obviously, we'd be foolish to want people like that coming to our country. But that's OK, because they're far too busy trying to save their own land to have any interest in ours.

For the other documentary nominees, click here.