A determined matriarch must protect her home from threatening outside forces in Damascus, Syria, a city under constant siege.

Played by Hiam Abbass (The Visitor; Paradise Now), Oum Yazan is a strong willed and resolute mother who witnesses a terrible act while in the company of her housemaid. Oum’s husband is out getting help, and falling bombs and bullets confine the family and a few neighbors to the crowded apartment. While barricaded, Oum must do what it takes to keep her loved ones safe, awaiting help that may or may not arrive.

Razor-sharp tension underscores every scene of writer/director Philippe Van Leeuw’s powerful and absorbing drama. Spectacular performances by both Abbas and Diamand Abou Abboud (also seen in this year’s The Insult), as Oum’s neighbor Halima, propel this intense and topical film about the struggle of everyday people in modern Syria, where privates homes can be both strongholds and prisons.