A young boy, 10 years old or so, faces the camera.
Like many young boys, he is happy to be interviewed.
This is war-torn Iraq, however, so he tells of the day ISIS came to his village. He starts to recount, horror after horror, what took place. It is hard to accept that one so young has already seen so much evil. Gradually, his retelling of what happened slows and he breaks down.
It is hard to watch as the tears flow down his cheeks. He tries to stem them, brushing them away…but to no avail. His grief is too great. He is now talking to himself as much as to the camera. He talks of when he used to go to school, ride his bicycle and play soccer with his friends—he stops. Again, he looks at the camera, finishing with the words: “Now all that is gone…”
This is just one of the harrowing testimonies in the new documentary Our Last Stand. The award-winning film tells the story of what is left of the ancient Christian communities in Iraq and Syria. ISIS, along with other Islamic extremists, is destroying the lives and the lands of Christians who have for centuries lived in peace with their more numerous Muslim neighbors. In this latest genocide, no one came to the aid of the Christians. They looked to the West, but no avail.
I recently spoke with the filmmakers, Jordan Allott and Helma Adde, after a screening of Our Last Stand.
CWR: What was the genesis of Our Last Stand?
Jordan Allott: For a number of years, I had been traveling in the Middle East doing work (shooting video, writing, taking photos) for an organization called In Defense of Christians. As I was learning more and more about the region, I was constantly thinking how best to present the plight of Christians in places like Iraq and Syria to a Western audience through film. Once I met Helma, who is a schoolteacher from New York (I was on a Fox News program with her father, who is a Syriac Orthodox priest) I knew she could act as a bridge between her family and community in Syria and an American or Western audience. After convincing Helma to travel with me, we set out to plan our journey to Iraq and Syria. Continue reading
Sources
- The Catholic World Report, article and interview by K.V. Turley, a London-based freelance writer and filmmaker with a degree in theology from the Maryvale Institute.
- Image: Breitbart
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