Isis, Tomorrow: The Lost Souls of Mosul

There are always weapons left behind after a war, for the defeated to use when they are ready to fight again. Over half a million minors lived inside the IS-occupied city of Mosul for three years, and this documentary focuses on the lives of the children and their families, who were indoctrinated and trained to become violent extremists. Will these children become the most effective weapons in a fight to restore the Caliphate in the future?

The Italian journalists Francesca Mannocchi and Alessio Romenzi’s began working on this documentary six months after Mosul was liberated, and the city depicted in the film is one left in ruins – and so are the people still living in it. Through interviews, most of them with minors, we are given insight to a hatred between the inhabitants that seems implacable for many generations so come, and a clear warning that IS is not yet defeated.

Francesca Mannocchi is an Italian journalist who has worked for Italian television for many years and has written for a range of international and Italian magazines including Focus, L'Espresso and Al Jazeera English. Alessio Romenzi (b. 1974) is an award-winning Italian photographer who has worked in different parts of the Middle East, with a focus on Syria over the last years. Isis, Tomorrow: The Lost Souls of Mosul premiered at the Venezia biennale in 2018.