George Timothy Clooney is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards; one for his acting and the other as a producer. He has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2015, the Honorary César in 2017, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2018, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2022.
Passion Pictures is a British film production company established by Andrew Ruhemann in 1987. The company has studios in London, Melbourne, Paris, Toronto, and New York City.
Cinema for Peace Awards are prizes awarded by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, a Berlin-based initiative that claims to raise awareness for the social relevance of films. Since 2002, Cinema for Peace has been inviting film makers, humanitarian and human rights activists, and public figures to its annual awards ceremony in Berlin to honor a selection of cinematic works on humanitarian and environmental issues. The event occurs at the same time as the Berlin International Film Festival.
Grain Media is a British film, television and commercials production company in South London, established in 2006 by Jon Drever and Orlando von Einsiedel.
The White Helmets, officially known as Syria Civil Defence, is a volunteer organisation that operates in parts of opposition-controlled Syria and in Turkey. Formed in 2014 during the Syrian Civil War, the majority of the volunteers' activity in Syria consists of medical evacuation, urban search and rescue in response to bombing, evacuation of civilians from danger areas, and essential service delivery. As of April 2018, the organisation said it had saved about 114,000 lives, and that 204 of its members had lost their lives while performing their duties. They assert their impartiality in the Syrian conflict.
The Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music was a Syrian orchestra dedicated to the performance of classical Arabic music, as well as experimental work based on traditional music from the Middle East. The orchestra played regular concerts in the Damascus Opera House since its opening in 2004. Due to the ongoing Syrian civil war, most of its members, like its principal conductor and oud virtuoso Issam Rafea, or Moslem Rahal, a notable ney player, have left Syria for exile in Europe, the US or other countries.
Khaled Omar Harrah was a Syrian man who volunteered for the Syrian Civil Defense Force, known as the White Helmets, an organization dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance.
Omran Daqneesh is a Syrian boy who, at age five, gained media attention after footage of him injured appeared on the Internet following a reported air strike.
Watani: My Homeland is a 2016 documentary short film directed, produced and written by Marcel Mettelsiefen. The film follows the story of a family's escape from Syrian Civil War, and their attempt to start a new life in Germany.
Orlando von Einsiedel is a British film director. He directs mostly documentary films that investigate global social issues, and has filmed in various places around the world, including Africa, Asia, America and the Arctic. von Einsiedel became known for his award winning film Virunga, produced with the cooperation of Virunga National Park director Prince de Merode.
Joanna Natasegara is a British film director and producer. She produced Virunga (2014) and The White Helmets (2016), for which she received nominations for Academy Award in the categories of Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary, respectively; she won the latter. Both nominations were shared with director Orlando von Einsiedel. She also worked on The Price of Kings, a documentary film series with each film focusing on a specific world leader.
Last Men in Aleppo is a 2017 documentary film about the Syrian Civil War. Written and directed by Feras Fayyad, produced by Kareem Abeed and Søren Steen Jespersen, it documents the life in Aleppo during the war and particularly sheds light on the search-and-rescue missions of the internationally recognized White Helmets, an organization consisting of ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards military strikes and attacks in the hope of saving lives. The documentary highlights the lives of three White Helmets founders, Khaled Omar Harrah, Subhi Alhussen and Mahmoud as they grapple the dilemma to flee their country or stay and fight for it.
Feras Fayyad is a Syrian film director, producer, and writer. Fayyad best known for his 2017 documentary Last Men in Aleppo and his 2019 documentary The Cave, both films earned him critical acclaim and numerous awards and nominations including two Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making him the first Syrian director to be nominated for an Oscar. Fayyad also won an Emmy award for Best Current Affairs Documentary, was nominated for a creative Emmy for best writing and directing, and has received two George Foster Peabody awards and a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement from the Directors Guild of America for his movie The Cave.
Eva Karene Bartlett is a Russian based American Canadian activist, commentator, and blogger who has propagated conspiracy theories in connection to the Syrian civil war, most notably the disproven allegation that the White Helmets stage rescues and "recycle" children in its videos.
James Gustaf Edward Le Mesurier was the British co-founder of the White Helmets, a volunteer civil defence organisation in the Syrian Civil War, founded in southern Turkey in 2014. Le Mesurier was a British Army officer and worked as part of the United Nations peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. He was the director of the non-profit Mayday Rescue Foundation, headquartered in the Netherlands. Le Mesurier died in a fall from the balcony of an Istanbul building where he kept an apartment and an office.
These are the lists of documentary films that were shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in recent years.
The following are representations of the Syrian Civil War in popular culture.
Evelyn is a 2018 documentary directed by and starring Orlando von Einsiedel. The premise revolves around Orlando's own family dealing with the effects of a suicide committed 13 years earlier by Orlando's brother Evelyn, by taking a series of long walks visiting landscapes Evelyn liked to walk when he was still alive.
Issam Rafea, also written Essam Rafea, is a Syrian musician, music director and composer, noted for his compositions and performances on the Arabic oud, as former director of the Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music and for his collaboration with jazz and world music bands. Since 2013, Rafea has lived in Chicago, touring in the US as well as internationally.
