Insyriated

Chamber drama doesn't begin to describe this gripping French feature.

"In Syria" is a finely made film - brisk, well-acted and filled with tension and mean twists. But it's also a wake-up call and a cry for help.

Any narrative improbability or twinges of melodrama are overcome both by the striking performances and the visceral, immersive filmmaking.

Ultimately, this war-torn drama fails to bring out the big guns.

Ignore the awful title, this is a taut drama that puts a human face on Syria's humanitarian crisis. No cheap thrills or easy answers here, but plenty of gut-churning drama.

Van Leeuw captures both the everyday horror of living through war and the lurking threat of sexual violence.

There are no simple answers, but with this set-up and its development, [Philippe] Van Leeuw gives us a lot to imagine and question.

Insyriated allows audiences to see a personal story that goes beyond the newspaper headlines we may have become desensitized to, a brief portrait of a life and not just a statistic.

...the real horror of war is not found in the bloodletting of combat... but in the individualized toll it takes on simple people - human beings reduced to their basest survival instincts...

As we peek into the day to day existence of a family stuck in an apartment in the middle of war torn Syria, we see how communities come together, fall apart and witness the resilience of the human spirit.