Florida Film Festival 2014 review: ‘Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution’

“Not Anymore:  A Story of Revolution” is a documentary short film that should be seen by everyone, and by everyone I mean people in the Western world and those who really don’t give a place like Syria a second thought because this is the type of experience that really drives home the full impact of what has happened over there and what their current state of living is now. Why is this not on the news regularly? Why are our televisions saturated with faux-reality shows and meaningless drivel? Why are we being encouraged to look away from the horrors happening in the our own world?

In “Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution,” a camera follows around a few young Syrians as the fight for freedom against the murderous regime which has reduced their cities to rubble and ash. One does battle with his gun, the other does battle with her camera, hoping that what they see will eventually be seen by the rest of the world. And they see are some horrible things, like their friends gunned down in front of them, that’s always fun to behold. And to get it on camera, too, for the rest of us to see!

And here it is, something that may be more relatable to us. You may not be able to locate Syria on a map and you may have no idea what the war in Syria is necessarily about, but you WILL be able to identify with people mourning the loss of their family, friends and the society they had built up and loved and cherished. When someone points out that they are near the city center of Aleppo, the most populated city in Syria, and they point out how the streets are completely deserted and how odd that would be if it happened in another major city in the world, like say, New York City, it makes you think about what would have to happen for your own city or town to be totally shut down and destroyed like that.

A short film like this is brilliant in how it rises above the politics and just focuses on the human element, why these people feel compelled to put themselves in harm’s way to do what they do, and it makes them more relatable, and hopefully somehow more people will be able to see this and really realize what life is like in Syria for everyone, young and old alike.

And if none of that works, the movie does has a final trick to hopefully woo in the interest. Three words: Cats of Syria.