Video From Short Film Passed Off As Emotional Soldier in Russia-Ukraine War
The video is part of a 2015 short film named 'Dialing'.
The claim states that it is a real video of an emotional soldier in the Ukraine-Russia war.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
Several social media users are sharing a video, where a man in military attire recording an emotional message with gunshots being heard in the background, with a claim that it is a recent video from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Ukraine is devastated by war, as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a 'special military intervention' on the country on 24 February.
However, we found that the video is from a 2015 short film named 'Dialing', that shows the journey of a Iraqi woman, whose son had joined the army and didn't come back, with her refusing to accept her son's death.
She goes around in search of a phone through which she can contact her son, although she doesn't know how to use one.
The Quint's WebQoof team has debunked this video earlier in 2021 when it was being shared along with the claim that it shows a soldier saying goodbye to his family during a war.
CLAIM
The video is being shared with the claim that reads, "Ukraine Russia war soldier emotion for family during war. (sic)"
An archive of the post can be seen here.
WHAT WE FOUND
With the help of InVid, a video verification tool, we extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.
A Google reverse image search led us to a 17:21-minute video on YouTube that was uploaded by a user on 15 August 2017.
The title, in Arabic, translated to, 'Dailing - The movie is calling, directed by Bahaa Al-Kazemi'.
The description mentioned that the film participated in more than 40 international festivals, and it was premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival, 2015.
The video was published on 15 August 2017.
We conducted a keyword search on YouTube and found the video on the official page of 'Dubai International Film Festival' posted on 24 November 2015.
The video was posted on 24 November 2015.
Further, we looked for news reports about the film, and found a report in Gulf News published on 23 November 2015.
The report had read that the film 'Dialing...' directed by Bahaa Al Kadimy would be premiered in the 12th edition of the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff).
The film "follows an Iraqi woman who refuses to accept her son’s death. Unable to accept the evidence before her, she journeys through the neighbourhood in search of a phone she can use to contact him, despite not knowing how to use one," the report read.
It must be noted that amid these war times, several such emotional videos are doing the rounds on social media with false claims.
Clearly, a clipped video from a 2015 short film is being shared with the false claim that it shows an emotional soldier in the Ukraine-Russia war.
Interestingly, our emotions often make us susceptible to mis/disinformation online. Watch our video to find out more on that.
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