9 Days in Raqqa - Comments & Tips

Like meeting someone way younger than you at a hookah bar and discovering she's done more in a couple of years than you could do in several lifetimes. At 30, Leila Mustapha became mayor of Raqqa, a city in Northern Syria, after allied forces kicked out the Daesh. This is the story of a French biographer who spent nine days with Ms Mustapha to get enough fodder for a book. The story is fascinating, the images haunting and the music by Ibrahim Maalouf accompanies the film like sweet smoke. The approach might be a little too detached for a sensitive soul like mine, but that doesn't hurt the film overall.