Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000 promising reform alongside his wife Asma, then answered the Arab Spring protests with mass arrests, poison gas, and a war that killed over 500,000 people and displaced six million. This DW film was shot both before and after his sudden collapse, tracking activist Bassam Ezzedine, who fled after documenting the 2013 chemical attack on Ghouta while his sister was imprisoned and her children taken from her. Syrian journalist Faysal risks his life filming bakery lines and children scavenging garbage in the regime's final weeks, evidence of a country bled dry after 54 years of Assad rule. When rebels launched their offensive on 27 November 2024, the government fell in eleven days without serious resistance, and Assad fled to Russia. Interviews shift in real time as subjects who once spoke only in fear suddenly discuss return and reconstruction. Syria expert Marie Forestier weighs whether the new administration's promises of inclusion can hold in a country this fractured.