In this essay for The New Yorker, Elliot Ackerman attends a private Istanbul screening of "The Cow Farm," a documentary by the Syrian filmmaker Ali Sheikh Khudr about his cousin Hassan, a cow farmer who was conscripted and killed fighting for President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

A Farmer's War, Not a Revolutionary's

Ackerman contrasts "The Cow Farm" with "Return to Homs," the Sundance-winning documentary about a rebel fighter, noting that Khudr's homemade film instead follows a reluctant conscript who wants nothing more than to be left alone with his cows.

Two Films, Two Kinds of Truth

Ackerman reads the differing promotional posters, one an iconic, Che Guevara-style portrait of a rebel fighter, the other a shot of a farmer urinating in his fields as a helicopter passes overhead, as emblematic of two very different claims to telling a "true story" of the war.

What Happened to Hassan's Cows

Ackerman closes with a quiet exchange with Khudr after the screening, asking what became of his cousin's cows, a small, unresolved detail that lingers after a film about a man killed by a war he never wanted any part of.

Read the Original Article

This essay originally appeared in The New Yorker.

Read “Searching for a True Story of the Syrian Civil War” at The New Yorker →