The war in Syria (2011-2024) produced – often on social media – some of the most horrific image montages the world has ever seen. Some, such as from the AbouNaddara collective (Of God and Dogs, VDR 2014) or Abdallah Al Khatib (Little Palestine, VDR 2021), to name just a few, have documented the blind spots of the conflict. The jails of the al-Assad dictatorship were among them, and filmmakers filming the “after” are beginning to address this issue. This is the case with Almourad Aldeeb in If Only the Year Had 364 Days. In long, static shots filmed on faded colour film, the director relates in a flat and, at times, hesitant voice, his personal experience – and that of his friends – of imprisonment, reaching for the words to express the immense suffering endured by an entire country. During this dive – as sober as it is terrifying – into the concentration camp system of the fallen regime, we feel the stagnation of time and the dead weight of silence, broken only by the echoes of torture. It is a film that silently screams among the ghosts still haunting these notorious places.