Until 2011, Jobar was home to more than 200,000 people.
A documentary film telling the story of Damascus’ Jobar district, from its deep-rooted history and old alleyways to the years of the Syrian revolution and siege, when residents dug a vast network of tunnels that became an entire city underground, protecting civilians and carrying life through death and destruction.
- Category
- Documentary
- Year
- 2026
- Duration
- 15
On the eastern flank of Damascus, at the edge of Ghouta, the district of Jobar stands as a witness to thousands of years of history… and to one of the most painful human stories of resilience in modern times.
“Jobar | Tunnels of Freedom” tells the full story of a neighborhood that was once the eastern gateway of Damascus, a meeting point of civilizations, religions, and cultures, before becoming, during the Syrian revolution, one of the front lines against the machinery of war.
The film begins with Jobar’s ancient history, from prophetic stories and popular narratives, to its historic synagogue, mosques, shrines, markets, and traditional crafts, reaching the everyday life its people lived for decades, when Jobar was a place alive with knowledge, work, and community.
The documentary then moves to the moment the Syrian revolution began, when the people of the district took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations demanding freedom, before Jobar became one of the fiercest battlefronts in Damascus and endured years of siege, shelling, and systematic destruction.
Amid this devastation, the film reveals its most astonishing story an entire city beneath the ground.
With simple tools and the efforts of besieged residents, a vast network of tunnels was dug, stretching for dozens of kilometers. These tunnels were used to move civilians, food, and medicine, and to protect thousands of families from bombardment, until Jobar came to possess another hidden world beneath the rubble.
The film shows how the tunnels became arteries of life, field hospitals, and passages of survival, and how civilians and fighters lived inside them under harsh conditions while fire rained from the sky above.
It also documents the scale of destruction the district suffered, with more than 90% of its buildings destroyed, and its streets, markets, and homes reduced to rubble, in one of the harshest images of devastation in Syria.
But “Jobar | Tunnels of Freedom” is not only a film about war…
It is a film about people.
About those who dug a path to life with their own hands amid death, about children who drew their dreams on the walls of shelters, and about a district whose memory could not be erased, and whose spirit could not be broken.
It is a film about freedom…
And about a city that hid underground in order to stay alive.