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On 10 November 2014, a video clip that came to be commonly known as the Syrian hero boy video began to circulate on social media sites. In that video, a young boy appeared to run bravely into sniper fire and rescue an even younger female child: During the roughly one-minute long video, the child seemingly either sustained or feigned gunshot wounds, and about halfway through the clip the boy fell to the ground as snipers continued shooting around him. Seconds later, he ran to a pink-clad young girl and transported her to apparent safety. When the video first began to circulate, BBC contributor Amira Galal observed that the boy's reaction when he was purportedly hit seemed suspicious. However, Galal opined, whether the footage was real or staged, it appeared to have genuinely originated in Syria: After the Syrian hero boy clip was viewed millions of times, the Norwegian Film Institute (which partially funded the film) urged Norwegian filmmaker Lars Klevberg to clarify the video's backstory. Klevberg contacted the BBC and admitted the video was not authentic, revealing the footage had been staged in May 2014 in Malta. The Oslo-based filmmaker said his team wanted to draw attention to the plight of children in war-torn Syria: Klevberg proclaimed he and his team had no reservations about deceiving viewers of the Syrian hero boy video: Producer John Einar Hagen also acknowledged the video's creators and backers had debated the ethical implications of presenting the fictional footage as authentic to viewers: The children surviving gunshots was supposed to send small clues that it was not real. We had long discussions with the film's financiers about the ethics around making a film like this. Klevberg noted the film had prompted debate, which was the original intent of its creators.
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