Of Fathers and Sons

An unbiased, unprejudiced & unfiltered observation of jihadist life and how extremist ideology is passed down through generations, Of Fathers and Sons paints a brutally honest & unflinching portrait of children being brainwashed into following the path of hatred & violence by their own fathers, and it does so by capturing the everyday life of a radical Islamist family.

An undiluted portrayal of inherited Islamist fervour, the documentary achieves a rare first-hand access by thoroughly observing religious fundamentalism from up close & with an uncompromising lens. Although it focuses on jihadist fanaticism in Syria, the mechanics of it can be applied to any extremist movement out there, for the cycle of hatred, prejudice & violence always starts at home first before surfacing elsewhere.

As admirable as it is unshakeable, Of Fathers and Sons is essential viewing.

Islam had been compromised. Am afriad this war is never gonna be over.

I watched this film in the Pune International film Festival 2019 with a group of 16 students. And everyone was just blow away after watching it.

There are many reasons for it but the foremost reason is the sheer honesty with which it is made. The director Talal just put the facts in front of the audience without taking any sides. He has painstakingly lived with an ISIS supporter & his family for two years and shown their life as it is. He is neither criticizing anyone nor praising anyone. And it leads us sympathizing with an ISIS supporter and their family. This sympathy doesn't mean we supporting ISIS & it's supporters but instead we feel sorry for them.

The film presents the naked face of any extremist movement. But at the same time it shows the movements' supporter as normal human being who are as mortal as anyone else.

And to me that is the victory of this film.

Talal Derki leaves his family in Berlin and returns to where he grew up in Norther Syria to spend two years amongst Salafist-jihadists & Al-Nusra Front (aka al-Qaeda in Syria) filming their fight against the Syrian Assad government. Their cry, "God's mission, jihad, the caliphate!" "We continue to spread the true faith around the world." In the doc the village we see was once Sufi (pacifist Muslims); now there are no more Sufis. The al-Nusra dream is to witness the full glory of Islam. Tracing their history to the wars in Afghanistan, "When American troops entered Afghanistan ... God almighty had promised us victory ... the American troops were humiliated & retreated because of the Mujahideen". We see little warfare outside of a few Russian bombs being dropped, rather the main focus of this doc is how a jihadist father prepares his eight sons (from two wives; none older than about 14; given that a man's worth is in sons I wonder if no female children is the result of infanticide) to continue to fight by sending two of the oldest to a military & Sharia caliphate training camp for young boys. Being trained to follow al-Qaeda defending Muslims in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Burma, India, Syria. Commonly, they form different coalitions w/other fighters to further their agenda using Afghanistan as a model. "Tomorrow we fight and kill under God's flag (the jihadists black banner) ... the enemies of God." Side note: As to the status of women none were seen, and it was mentioned that if any males saw a female (no matter how young) outside their house they would first be disapprovingly glared at. Likely worse would follow.

Not sure if insight is the right word.....a look at a world that remains foreign to Westerners - I have watched it a few times and tried to pick up small pieces of info and imagine how the view of the world is presented when growing up in that environment. The story for me presented a look at how the world looks from inside a family that has had the same views presented over generations - I did not try to analyze any political meaning...to me that is not what the film was about.