There Will Be No More Night

An intense documentary about the tremendous tension between observation and interpretation. The pilots and gunners of attack helicopters who carry out nighttime missions in war zones make decisions with far-reaching consequences, not only for their targets, but for themselves as well; the fear of making a mistake is ever-present.

During their flights, the soldiers use thermal cameras to observe movement on the ground: anything that gives off heat lights up. From a distance, landscapes, villages, people, and animals become abstract patches of light and dark, lines, surfaces, and contours. Is the figure among them a Taliban fighter with a Kalashnikov or a shepherd with a stick?

Filmmaker Éléonore Weber had access to video recordings of French and American missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. A French helicopter pilot related his often-shocking experiences to her. What begins as a monotone video essay gradually develops a powerful tension, because as viewers we find ourselves in the pilot’s seat. We catch fragments of conversations between crew members; we look, zoom in, interpret, hesitate—and then comes the explosion.