Artifact War

Screening
Artifact War
(2024, USA, Documentary, 96 min.)

Directed by
Evan Carpenter
Jacob Schwarz

Followed by a panel discussion with:
Amr Al-Azm, Shawnee State University, protagonist of Artifact War
Gabriele Scarpa, Police Adviser, INTERPOL at the U.N.
TBA, Representative, Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate of the U.N.
Enrico Milano, University of Verona, Legal Adviser of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the U.N.

Introduced and moderated by:
David Donat Cattin, Center for Global Affairs, NYU

In ENGLISH

The documentary Artifact War (2024) is an enlightening and masterful cinematic story on the smuggling of cultural property out of Syria by ISIS (ISIS/IS-Da’esh).

An intrepid archeology professor and his team of students are the only ones who stand in the way of an ISIS illicit antiquities network. Faced with losing their cultural heritage they become spies, and they go undercover in ISIS territory. They dodge bombs and militia to create a system to monitor theft and destruction of Syrian antiquities. During this process, they discover more than they anticipated, discovering thousands of trafficked items and that the crimes committed are being enabled by terrorists and multinational corporations. The tragedy continues because the sale of illegal goods is uncovered in the most unsuspecting place.

Trailer: