Waad Al-Kateab is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. She became a citizen journalist in 2011, after protests broke out across Syria against the Assad regime, and in January 2016 she began documenting the horrors of Aleppo for Channel 4 News in a series of films titled “Inside Aleppo.” The reports she made on the conflict in Syria became the most watched pieces on the British news program, 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” is her first feature film.
“For Sama” will premiere at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival on March 11. Edward Watts also directed the film.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
WAK: “For Sama” is a message to my daughter, telling the story of my life in Aleppo through five years of the Syrian revolution. It shows how I fell in love, got married, and gave birth to her as terrible violence raged around us. I wanted her to see the laughter and the happiness of our lives as well as the sadness and loss. Through our personal story, the audience can see the truth of what thousands of Syrians experienced.
Ultimately the film is my effort to explain to Sama the incredibly difficult choice that her father Hamza and I had to face between protecting her and staying true to our struggle for freedom. So many parents faced the same terrible choice. I felt it was important that Sama understood not only our very real fears for our beloved city, but also our hope that one day she would have a better future because of our struggle.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
WAK: This isn’t just a story for me. This is my life. A first-hand account of my experiences growing up in Aleppo during one of the world’s most devastating humanitarian crises. Throughout [this period], I was determined to document the horrors of this war, to show the world what was happening in the hope that the world would act.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
WAK: I want people to understand that while this is my story and shows what happened to me and my family, our experience is not unusual. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians experienced the same thing and are still doing so today.
Children are still dying. As I write this, seven were killed yesterday in indiscriminate shelling by the Assad regime. The dictator who committed these crimes is still in power. In fact, governments around the world are now saying they should restore relations with him.
How could this be allowed to happen in the 21st century? Have we learned nothing from history? Imagine the outcry if this happened in America. Yet because it is Syria, the world has a different morality.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
WAK: The challenges in this project were uncountable. From the moment I started filming my first clip, there was the risk of being arrested by the regime forces. Then when I moved to rebel-held east Aleppo to escape this risk, I faced bombing, shelling, being injured or killed at any moment. Also, the community in that part of the city was more conservative than I was used to.
Being a woman in a warzone is not easy at all. To witness the horror that I lived through every day was very difficult, and [it was challenging to] then find the hope and faith to stay alive and not lose heart.
Even afterwards, reliving the horror through watching the footage over and over again was particularly difficult. It was a painful reminder of everything we lost personally, but also how badly we were let down as a country, as the rest of the world stood by and watched and did nothing.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
WAK: My film started life at Channel 4 News, a British nightly news program. I filed reports and short films for them when I was living under siege in Aleppo, and when I came out we discussed making a feature documentary – a more personal take on my time in Aleppo through the five years of the uprising there.
I revealed that I had over 300 hours of footage, much of it from my private life as well as the situation! On that basis, Channel 4 commissioned “For Sama” and provided the larger share of the funding, with PBS’ “Frontline” as a co-funder in the United States. That was when my fellow director Edward Watts joined me in the amazing process of crafting the film.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
WAK: When the revolution started in 2011, like many hundreds of Syrians, I took to the streets with my camera phone to document the unfolding conflict, tell the stories of individuals protesting against the regime, and record the human suffering caused by the violence of the regime’s response.
[The Assad regime] even denied the protests were happening, so one of the most important things was to prove to people that we were there fighting for our freedom.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
WAK: The best advice I received, particularly given I was living in Aleppo, was to just keep filming. What I filmed sometimes felt totally irrelevant at the time, but looking back through all my footage now, it is such an important record. What I captured were often mundane day-to-day tasks being carried out under the most extraordinary circumstances.
For example, I filmed a heavily pregnant woman who arrived at the hospital with shrapnel wounds in her stomach. This might seem a strange thing to film in the time of war, but the footage of the doctors trying to save her unborn baby seemed in many ways to capture the whole struggle.
The worst advice: Don’t film for the sake of filming.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
WAK: No matter what film you’re making, you have to care deeply and connect with the subject and people you’re filming. You need to film with respect and without being intrusive. Be patient. And take time to tell the story.
I think what makes a female perspective unique is care for the details – the details that most men don’t see. Feeling the story and putting yourself into the subject’s shoes to see how it looks like from inside.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
WAK: In Aleppo, I have to say, we watched lots of films to take our mind off what was happening around us, without paying too much attention to the gender of the director. For me, the most important thing is the message of a film – its soul and spirit. I think both men and women bring different things to cinema, and I respect them both equally.
W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
WAK: I know about the #MeToo movement, and I like it a lot. It encourages women in our community to speak out about their fears. The issues are still far from solved, and I think a lot of women are still frightened to speak up. But it’s fantastic that we have started to feel how important it is to share these experiences and break the traditions.
In our community we face immediate concerns such as the fate of civilians still under bombardment by the regime, political prisoners, and the plight of refugees, yet I was still aware of the beginning of the #MeToo movement and felt it would make a big difference in women’s lives.
