A short movie by Lukas Kolig, Celia Penning, Laura Bohorquez, Erasmus Kalenga Hamunjela (MA PR & Digital Marketing), produced as part of the module Media Production, with lecturer Patrick Baab.

The Background

This investigative report is based on the story of Anwar al-Bunni and how a chance encounter in a Berlin grocery store helped bring about a historical trial, on German soil, against Anwar R. and Eyad A., for crimes they committed against humanity on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria.

Anwar al-Bunni is a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist, who was arrested and charged in his home country Syria in 2007 for disseminating false information about the Syrian state. After serving five years, he decided upon his release from prison to flee to Germany in 2014.  In Berlin, in an incredible twist of fate, Anwar al-Bunni happened upon Anwar R. in a grocery store right next to his refugee home in Marienfelde.

Anwar R., who worked for the intelligence services in Syria, is the man who al-Bunni alleges abducted him in front of his apartment in Damascus and interrogated him in prison. He was part of the Assad regime in Syria, from Branch 251, who allegedly oversaw the murder, rape and torture of at least 4,000 people. Also part of the regime was Eyad A., who arrested people at protests and brought them to Branch 251. Both men flew to Germany in 2011 and 2014, and arrived in the same refugee home in Marienfelde as Anwar al-Bunni.

After the encounter in the supermarket, Anwar al-Bunni started working together with state prosecutors collecting evidence of the crimes against humanity committed in Syria. In large part thanks to his efforts, Anwar R. and Eyad A. were finally arrested in 2019 in Berlin. 

The steps involved

The goal of this investigation was to create a report around the story of Anwar al-Bunni by finding out how Berlin became a battleground for the fight against humanity crimes in Syria. There were many steps involved in bringing this report to life. The first step of the report consisted of a detailed fact sheet about the protagonists and the war in Syria. From this a hypothesis was formed, which needed to be tested by carrying out interviews with the most important protagonists in this story. In order to do these interviews, first the sources to contact potential interview partners needed to be collected and divided into victims, neutrals and responsible people. The most important interview partner was  Anwar al-Bunni, as well as Syrian activists in Berlin. After setting up the possible sources, the questionnaire was developed for the interview partners. In the last step, the outline for the visual and production-related inquiry was decided.

The biggest challenges

Some of the biggest challenges we had to overcome in conducting this report was the fact that this was a very sensitive topic. It was hard to find interview partners and also find questions that wouldn´t trigger them. Another challenge was that there had already been many reports about al-Bunni. So we didn‘t want to copy all the existing ones and had to come up with a new angle. Additionally, it was a big challenge trying to secure interview partners, especially from the legal side, since the trial was still ongoing. And finally, there were many organizational and technical challenges in organizing shooting locations, a functional timetable, and working with the equipment without any preexisting experience.

To watch the full movie, follow the link below: