Educational Media Reviews Online

This film is about the Tadmor (Palmyra) prison complex in Syria, told by a group of prisoners who were detained there for a number of years. For many of these prisoners, most Lebanese detainees of the Assad regime, this film is a chance to tell their stories of the humiliations and tortures that they endured in prison. Many of these former prisoners role-play the torture that they experienced, and even act out their torturers' activities, in an abandoned school near Beirut. This is a powerful film, with very graphic and often disturbing content. While highly recommended, I would suggest that this should only be for adult viewers who are warned beforehand of the graphic nature of both the content and the drama. It would be appropriate for college classes discussing war, violence, human rights, and torture in modern society, with the afore-mentioned warnings provided ahead of time.