The oft-overlooked Oscar category of best documentary short has a dramatic theme this year: Three of the five films nominated are about Syrians, and each offers an intimate, eye-witness account of the devastation in that country.

One of the shorts, The White Helmets, follows a group of civilian volunteers in Aleppo who search for and rescue bombing victims. They’re the only first responders left and they’ve saved tens of thousands of people, digging them out from the rubble. (The sound of bombs blasting can be heard throughout the film.)

“They began with nothing,” says filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel, who’s based in the U.K. “They began, you know, clawing at the rubble with their bare hands. … They are the closest things Syrians have to superheroes.”