Starring: Waad Al-Kateab, Hamza Al-Khateab, Sama Al-Khateab
Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment
Runtime: 96 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2020
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This subtitled, Syrian-British documentary drama is based on real events, and tells the story of the experiences of a young Syrian woman who gave birth to her daughter in the ancient city of Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War. She lived through the siege of Aleppo when the Assad regime, and the Russian Air Force pummelled Aleppo hitting and destroying its houses, sacred shrines, schools, and hospitals. The Battle of Aleppo officially took place from 2012 to the end of 2016.
The film won the Award for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019, and swept nominations for the yet to be announced 2020 awards of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) – making it the most nominated documentary in BAFTA’s history. Against tough competition, it was nominated for Outstanding British film, Best Foreign Language Film, Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer, and Best Documentary. The film is co-directed, and narrated by the same person: Waad Al-Kateab. She is the mother of the infant child to whom the movie is dedicated, and her story begins in 2012.
The documentary tracks in a highly intimate way, over a five year period, the turbulent life of Waad Al-Kateab who lived with her doctor-husband, Hamza, through the uprising in Aleppo. During these five years she fell in love with Hamza, married him in the midst of war-torn conflict, and gave birth to Sama, their daughter. The film takes the form of a love letter from a young mother addressed to her infant child. As well as being a love letter “For Sama”, the film attempts to explain to Sama why her family did what they did. In her own narration, Waad asks poetically: “Will you blame me for staying, or blame me for leaving?” The camera she holds captures kindness and love, and it mingles them with moving images of carnage, injury and destruction.
It was while war engulfed Aleppo, that Waad gave birth, and she faced the difficult decision whether to flee with her child to safety, or stay behind to assist the victims of war. She chose to stay. For Waad, leaving meant abandoning her struggle for freedom. The movie puts the viewer right into the conflict of war from the very start, and it opens with footage of an air strike, experienced by Waad inside a target zone. Waad uses her camera to document the protests of citizens, including her fellow students, against President Assad, and she keeps filming as Aleppo fell. At the same time, she records her own life in Aleppo, her marriage, and the birth of Sama.
The film is an urgently powerful and personal account of how a woman experiences war. Waad captures the death and survival of the citizens of Aleppo. Her hand-held camera records a world disintegrating around her while her husband tries to help the injured in hospitals assumed to be safe from the bombs, which they are not. The stress and anxiety of her predicaments are palpable in a very immediate way. Waad combines images of dead bodies, and injured people, with uplifting images of simple activities like children playing happily together, the joy of discovering family comforts, finding new friends, and being given food when hungry.
The movie is powerfully anti-war and cries out for justice for the living. It is a tremendously inspiring film that carries messages of hope for the people of war-torn cities and countries around the world. It movingly mixes horror and hope. Waad keeps filming to expose war atrocities for others to see, and among the chaos and tragedy she makes sure we see reason for hope. Her camera catches people surviving, and enduring, in the midst of terrible events.
This is a film that grabs at one’s emotions in a totally unsentimental way. It engages the viewer profoundly, and is a gripping account of the horrors of war.
The entire footage for the film was smuggled by Waad out of Syria and into the hands of British co-Director, Edward Watts, when she was forced to flee. She and her family were eventually granted asylum in the UK, where she now lives – hoping to return some day to Aleppo.
Peter W Sheehan is Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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