Director’s Statement 

As a young Iranian schoolboy, from the age of ten, I had to be part, every morning, of the
same ritual. First of all, from 7am to 7:30am, we listened to military music. Then, we had to
salute the flag. Finally, we had to shout collectively: “Death to the USA! Death to Israel! I will
give my life for the Supreme Leader!”
Every single day from the age of 10, until 15 years old, we had to read a book about
military defense. We also had to learn how to use an AK 47. And from the age of 12, we had
effective shooting training.
All our educational background was conditioning us to become soldiers, to make us
believe that war was glorious, and that dying at war as a “Shahid” was the supreme glory.
Whether our country was actually at war or not didn’t matter.
Through this daily conditioning we were led to believe we knew war from the inside.
This collective illusion that was taught to us under the name of war was just as familiar to us as
the kind of religion that was taught to us (6 hours per week of religion, 6 hours of studying the
Qur’an, six hours of “heavenly messages”, 6 hours of Arabic language).
If you have been almost exclusively trained to war from the beginning – and if you have
no personal opportunity to be in contact with other sources of information and education than the
official one – you may find yourself trapped, between the age of 20 and 25, into the strong belief
that your only know-how is linked to war. War will most likely become the only option in yourlife.
You then become the cause and the effect of the pain and sorrow you are living in. Even
if it’s against your will, you are becoming the tools of the warlords in the region, to serve for
unclear and ideological aims of extremists in the middle of Middle East.
This is how the system produces fuel for the war: each soldier is being shaped, from a
very young age, to become a log to be thrown in the fire.

The first time I actually met war, I met Seyed, and all this golden legend was shattered.
Seyed and me are almost the same age. We received the same kind of education to war. But there
are at least two major differences in our life journeys. The first being that I was lucky enough to
have a personal environment that was very critical of this whole system. So I had access to
education, broader information, art… He didn’t have the same options. The second difference
being that he grew up in Afghanistan, a country where high intensity war almost never stopped
since 1979. Since he was born in 1990, he has never lived in a country at peace. He doesn’t know
what peace means. His whole personality was structured in hatred and extreme violence. Let’s
quote him: “I’ve become rough inside.”
But even this lifelong fighter has reached a time when he was fed up of war. That’s when
he tried to escape towards an ordinary peaceful life. But that was more complicated than he
could imagine. He understood, then, that he was trapped into a geographical and political
environment that would not allow him to live differently. On the contrary, it would make sure to
keep him in this warrior life, making him sink deeper and deeper into war.

As an irony of fate, individual and collective destinies are crossing each other: at the
same moment, when Seyed is trying to escape the war, Bachar Al Assad – one of the worst
warlords in the Middle East – has fallen and tries to escape from the very war he was feeding and
maintaining for years, and to which he has submitted his own people, in order to stay in power.

With Seyed, we see and hear the story of a powerless actor, an individual whose life and
journey are a perfect embodiment of the eternal cycle of war in the Middle East.
This is what I am trying to show in this film.