We Are the Giant
The Arab Spring uprisings in late 2010 provoked a wave of pro-democratic revolutions across the Middle East. Instigated by dictatorships, economic hardship and extreme human rights violations, Arab nations engaged in a series of revolutions to overthrow autocratic governments that remain unresolved to this day.
Following on from the CIA’s search for Osama bin Laden in his 2013 documentary Manhunt, director Greg Barker gives his audience a bird’s eye account of the active involvement in war of three families in Libya, Syria and Bahrain. We Are the Giant is about revolutionaries as much as it is about revolutions. Barker produces a thought-provoking account of the human fight for democratic freedom, giving voice to the victims who have been silenced by merciless regimes. It highlights the alarming rate at which peaceful demonstrations descend into barbaric civil wars.
Barker creates a meteoric collage of conflict, melding archive stills, film footage and philosophical quotes with jarring images of death, destruction and bloodshed. Aligning the uprisings with great revolutions of the past, Barker exemplifies how battles fought in the digital age can severely influence the trajectory and outcome of any contemporary war. In the Arab Spring uprisings, Twitter and Facebook are as much a facet of war as artillery, torture, sexual violence and prison; the media can perpetuate violence as much as the ideological objectives of democratic protesters. The speed with which campaigners can communicate their ideologies via social networking can change the characteristics of war, both negatively and positively, and determine a path far removed from its original intentions.
We Are the Giant is the voice of past wars, present wars and wars to come. Barker demonstrates that the mechanics of war may have changed in the digital age but the outcome remains the same: bloodshed, death and torture are inevitable consequences in any fight for freedom. As the modern world becomes engulfed in a global threat from ISIS, Barker’s account is ever-more significant, as the great revolutions of the past have helped shaped contemporary culture. Insightful, fascinating and at times harrowing, We Are the Giant will resonate with audiences as the conflicts in the Arab world remain globally relevant and unresolved.
Dee O’Donoghue
We Are the Giant is released on 14th November 2014.
Watch the trailer for We Are the Giant here:
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