Abstract:

"This chilling film follows the everyday life in a Madrassa, a fundamentalist Islamic school in Pakistan. It is the first time since the attack on New York that a camera crew was permitted to enter this Madrassa, where the majority of Taliban leaders were educated. The school is a gigantic complex of study rooms and libraries with hundred-year-old handwritten books. More than a thousand boys live in this society without women, where the teachers crave to return to the period of the prophets. The boys, some as young as five years, are awakened at 4:30 for morning prayers. Homework, lectures, more prayers, fill the day until bedtime at 10 p.m. There is only a two-hour break in the afternoon. The aim is that the boys must memorize the Koran by heart, especially difficult since the Koran is in Arabic, which the boys don't understand. The young boys are schooled to believe that it is every Muslim's duty to become a Jihad fighter and if necessary to place their lives at Jihad's disposal. We follow two pupils, aged 11 and 13, and try to understand why their families have sent them at such a young age to this harsh boarding school. The film also takes one to a huge rally in Pakistan, where the Madrassa teachers incite the crowd to voice their hatred of the West. The anger of the men is palpable. An important film to understand the Islamic mind. "--filmakers.com