The cinema of victims” is what the filmmaker Usama Muhammed calls it in his documentary “Silvered Water.

Syria Self-Portrait” from 2014. Muhammed, who lives in exile in Paris, shot it together with his Kurdish colleague Wiam Simav Bedirxan, who is in the besieged Homs and continues to work there as a primary school teacher.

At the time when their joint film project begins, they have never met in person.

They are only in contact with each other online.

Bedirxan asks Muhammed what he would film if he were there.

Muhammed, wracked with guilt and pain, responds and Bedirxan begins filming.

But she is not the only one.

It is said that "Silvered Water" was filmed by 1001 Syrians and is also a collage of cell phone recordings.

You can see videos of euphoric protests that end in a bloodbath: raw, unfiltered violence – “The Victims’ Cinema”.

I could have started the last sentence differently: We see videos of euphoric protests that end in a bloodbath.

"We see" instead of "are seen".

The first variant presupposes that one also looks, the second leads almost inevitably to the question of witnessing and what must follow from it.

In the past few weeks, I had to think about this Syrian film again.

To Muhammad in his Paris exile watching these videos.

Videos from a country where journalists are not allowed to report.

Videos uploaded by the hundreds, by the thousands, to Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.

Comparisons with Syria when it comes to the protests in Iran are firmly rejected.

After all, it is a different country, with a different history, a different population and a different complexity, among other things.

To derive something for the protests against the mullahs and what will become of them from the protests against Assad and what has become of them is stupid.

Nevertheless, both countries are linked.

More than a thousand Iranian fighters are said to have died alongside Assad's troops in Syria.

Iranian soldiers, with their proxy militia for Hizbullah in Syria, have been involved in cracking down on anti-regime protests.

But that's not all.

Tehran provided the Assad regime with billions in loans, arms and ideological fodder for the war it represents as an international Shiite front against Sunni infidelity.

Iran is less isolated than it seems

Of course, it was also geostrategically worthwhile for Iran.

The regime's sphere of influence now extends not only to Lebanon, but extends across the Golan Heights right up to the Israeli border.

Direct access to the Mediterranean Sea will also be opened up via the Syrian coast.

Seen from Europe, Iran may often seem like an isolated island.

But this impression is deceptive.

The only ones who have been sealed off are the people.

The product "Islamist Revolution" and with it the terror were diligently exported.

Civil war, crumbling regimes, crises, be it in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen or Syria - Iran never missed an opportunity to get involved.

And if you look at the whole thing from a different angle:

There is a corrupt regime that only stays in power with brute force.

There are people on the streets calling for freedom.

Images of their bodies: their backs, arms and legs riddled with shotgun pellets.

Reports of doctors who can only go about their work and treat demonstrators in secret.

Photos and names of the disappeared.

Videos of funerals, funeral processions that turn into demonstrations.

Despite all the differences: A dictatorship remains a dictatorship.

Violence is at its core, whether it is Syrian or Iranian.

We see a blue sky.

We see the regime shooting at people in Zahedan and Mahabad.

We see the empty streets in Hamadan and Kermanshah because the truck drivers are also on strike.

We will witness these crimes and also this cry for freedom.

As long as pictures get to us.

Until the regime shuts down the internet again.

As long as we look

Cables and fiber optics are the nerve tracts of our time.