Exactly 7 years ago, when I moved to Gaziantep in 2015, thousands of civilians, including hundreds of women and children, were killed by Russian missiles, 100 kilometers from my home.

I, who started university at the age of 19 with great hopes for the future, experienced a great disappointment due to the events that took place only 100 kilometers away.

While my Syrian classmates, who were trying to escape the Syrian war and continue their education, were shaken by the news of a new death every day, I started to lose hope.

The increase in attacks by Russia and Assad in 2016 and the use of cluster munitions was the last point that broke the glass for me. While waiting for a reaction from the world to these events, seeing that they were acting in a completely selfish and self-interested way destroyed the idea of ​​the future in me. I was 20 years old and no longer believed in the future.

Of course, I could understand how Western "civilized" states made terrorism look cute in line with propaganda news, the so-called condemnations of the United Nations community, and America's plans for the Greater Middle East. I was not so naive and ignorant as to be surprised at this. But I was traumatized when people who call themselves Artists, Academics, Intellectuals, etc., followed all these lies and propaganda news.

I admitted that I was defeated. I wanted to forget about all this and withdraw into my own shell. That's why I left my university education halfway and came back to Istanbul. Soon after, I got a job at an animation studio and went on living as if nothing had happened.

Of course, that didn't take long. In the spring of 2018, I received an offer. A director who was going to prepare a documentary series for the state channel about the families of civilians killed "accidentally" wanted me to go to Afghanistan with him. I didn't like admitting defeat, so I accepted the offer without hesitation.

For 6 months before I went there, I read, watched, researched everything about Afghanistan, and learned everything I needed to learn about it.

I thought…

However, the reality was different. I made my first trip to Afghanistan on 07.07.2018. After 21 days of travels, interviews, and impressions in the capital Kabul, I thought I had come to a country that was touted as "backward" and "the country of radical Islamist Barbarians", but I realized that I was wrong again. People in Afghanistan were very kind, calm, smiling, and hospitable. I thought America and the Taliban were at war, but I learned that they went into the drug business together and one produced and the other distributed. I thought the Afghan government was working for Afghanistan, but they were only working for the bribes they took from the Americans. It turns out that the United States and NATO forces, who set out to bring Democracy to Afghanistan, were only there to create an unstable and poor country and to usurp underground resources.

All these things meant nothing to people living in Western, Developed, and Civilized countries. You ask why? Because the first condition of being "civilized" is to leave the snake that does not touch you alone!

The experiences I heard and lived there made me even more ambitious and I decided to hold on to my work more tightly. After returning from this trip, I made a second trip to Afghanistan, followed by Iraq and Syria.

I was quite used to the wars in the Middle East and Asia for years, but it never occurred to me that I would shoot a war documentary in Europe.