Great Britain/ 2019/ 100′
DIRECTED BY: Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts
SCREENPLAY BY: Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Waad Al-Khateab
EDITED BY: Chloe Lambourne, Simon McMahon
PRODUCERS: Nevine Mabro, George Waldrum
PRODUCED BY: Channel 4 News, ITN Productions
FESTIVALS & AWARDS: Academy Awards – Oscars 2020 – Nominee Best Documentary Feature; BAFTA Film Award Best Documentary; Cannes Film Festival 2019 – Golden Eye Documentary Prize; IDFA 2019 – Audience Award; European Film Awards 2019 – European Documentary Award; IDA Documentary Awards 2019 – IDA Award Best Feature
For Sama is the first documentary by 26-year-old citizen journalist Waad al-Kateab. She dedicates the film to her newborn daughter. With a simple digital camera, she documents the Syrian uprising against Assad in the rebel stronghold of Aleppo, from the beginning to the forced evacuation at the end of 2016. A lot happens in those five years: the hopeful revolution is crushed, the city is besieged and constantly bombed. With a handheld camera, Al-Kateab films war in all its sickening detail, sometimes barely escaping death herself. She sees the consequences up close: her husband works as a doctor in one of the few remaining hospitals in the city. In the horrific reality of war, we experience with her the uncertainty of her child’s future.
Waad Al-Kateab is a documentary filmmaker who became a citizen journalist in 2011, after protests broke out across Syria against the Assad regime. In 2016, she began documenting the Syrian conflict in a series of films titled Inside Aleppo. These news reports received almost half-a-billion views online, and won 24 awards, including the 2016 International Emmy for breaking news coverage. She and her family were eventually evacuated from Aleppo in 2016. For Sama (2019) is her first feature film.
Edward Watts is an Emmy award-winning, BAFTA-nominated filmmaker who has directed over 20 narrative and documentary films that illuminate the resilience of the human spirit despite harrowing circumstances. His film Escape from ISIS (2015) exposed the brutal treatment of the estimated 4 million women living under the rule of the Islamic State and received numerous international awards, including an International Emmy and BAFTA nomination for Best Current Affairs Documentary.