For Sama

For Sama is set around the students Waad and Hamzi, who meet, fall in love, get married and have a daughter named Sama. Waad and Hamzi’s lives transform at the same time as their city, Aleppo, transforms from a university city to a war zone. With her camera in hand, Waad takes on the difficult task of documenting the brutalities. Hoping to create a counterbalance to the extreme violence her daughter is born into, she holds on to the love of her country and the people around her. This is a unique testimony from a woman in the midst of war, making it one of this year’s most powerful documentaries.

Waad Al-Khateab (b. 1991) is a Syrian journalist and filmmaker. She is based in London, where she previously worked as a journalist for the TV channel Channel 4. For Sama is her director debut. The film premieres at Cannes Film Festival in 2019, and was nominated to an Oscar in the catergory “best documentary”. Al-Khateab collaborated with the British director Edward Watts, a former colleague from Channel 4, behind documentaries such as Escape From ISIS (2015).