A teenager grabs a camera and runs toward gunfire. Ten years later, he tries to understand why.
“There was excitement in the air,” says Donga, now in his late twenties, describing his feelings when the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule broke out in 2011. He was 19, living in Misrata, and boldly went to film the fighting with a friend. A decade later, in a hotel in Istanbul, where he has been living since he was wounded in battle, he looks back on the past ten years through excerpts from his videos. And he reflects on how that period has affected him.
Editing
Past and present footage collide with devastating precision.
Direction
Lamin lets Donga interrogate himself without easy redemption.
Writing
Sparse narration that trusts the footage's moral weight.
Director
Muhannad Lamin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Misrata became synonymous with Libyan resistance after a brutal 2011 siege; Donga's footage circulates in activist archives worldwide.
IDFA's 2023 selection highlighted emerging Arab documentary voices processing revolution's aftermath; this was Lamin's feature debut.
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