Hello , My name is Mohamad Ataya , I am filmmaker from Norway.

I am making documentary film about Austin Tice and his mother Debra.

The film tells the complex human and political story of the disappearance of American journalist Austin Tice in Syria in 2012 in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus. It follows the details of his personality, his message, his final days, the mystery surrounding his disappearance, and the ongoing efforts to uncover his fate.

He is a former officer in the US Marine Corps. After graduating from Georgetown University, he began working as a freelance journalist, covering the events of the Arab Spring and the Syrian Revolution in Damascus, its suburbs, and several other areas of Syria. In 2012, he went to Syria to cover the revolution, working with major institutions such as the Washington Post and Reuters. On August 14 of that year, Tice planned to travel to Lebanon, so he got into a car in the suburb of Daraya, south of the Syrian capital Damascus, but he was stopped at a checkpoint by the Assad regime and disappeared. Before he disappeared, he met with a group of civilian activists and members of the Free Syrian Army in the city of Daraya, south of Damascus, and conducted an exclusive interview with them. He prepared his report, and then the members took him outside the city. After that, no news was heard of him. Five weeks later, a 43-second video titled “Austin

Tice is Alive” was released, showing the American journalist being held captive by an unidentified armed group.

About a month later, he appeared in a short video, blindfolded and held by an unknown party. However, the US government

believes that he is being held captive by the Assad regime. Was he being held in Sednaya prison? Or was he being held in one of the security services’ strongholds in Syria? What is his fate?