UF FILMCLUB THEME: TERRORISM

Warriors from the north
Warriors from the North is about young Somali-Scandinavian men, who leave their comfortable everyday life here in Scandinavia to become fighters, and perhaps even suicide bombers, in Somalia – one of the most dangerous and impoverished places in the world.
 
The issue of young Muslims traveling from Europe to countries such as Syria and Somalia to fight with Islamic rebels is a highly topical one, making this story of a Danish-Somalian boy even more relevant. His back turned to the camera as he looks out over a nondescript housing development in Copenhagen, “The Shadow” describes how he fell victim to recruiters from the militant Somalian rebel group al-Shabaab. He outlines the conditions that make boys such as him susceptible to the lure of the “holy war,” explaining that, “Nothing in my life made any sense.” So eloquent is he in his account that one might think it was scripted, but what happened to him is as real as the scenes from a suicide attack by one of his former friends.
 
Directors Nasib Farah and Søren Steen Jespersen approach the subject in a very matter-of-fact way. A number of other very young fighters from countries including the Netherlands, their identities concealed, explain why they left hearth and home and are prepared to die. Abukar, a cleaner, represents the voice of the parents who are doing everything within their power to convince their children to return home
 
Red lines
The news from the Middle East worsens daily into a nightmare scenario—one eerily foretold in 2012 as two young, unlikely Syrian activists launch a radical plan for bringing democracy to their country, besieged by the brutal Bashar al-Assad regime. Under threat of death and armed only with the Internet, they organize when no one else will.
 
University student Razan uses her laptop to coordinate a smuggling network for bringing humanitarian aid and journalists into Syria.
 
Damascus-born Mouaz works his contacts in the West, becoming a primary source for intel carrying dire implications: without external support for the moderate opposition, Syria’s struggle will draw in opportunist hardliners such as ISIS, spread to neighboring countries such as Iraq and dangerously destabilize an entire region.
 
Red Lines provides cinematic boots on the ground, offering a rare window into the Syrian conflict taking us from the trenches to geopolitical jockeying and becoming, along the way, a searing exposé of an ongoing inhumane crisis.
 

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