Waad Al-Khateab

Never mind all those so-called superheroes that have dominated movie screens for the past two decades. Now is not the time for escapist fantasies. For Sama is the reality wake-up call we as a country desperately need right now, one that shows what happens to a society when corruption, injustice and oppression goes unchecked.

For Sama is a harrowing first person documentary in which the filmmaker, Waad Al-Khateab, a Syrian woman journalist, chronicles her daily life and struggles to survive during the Battle of Aleppo. Waad states that she is making the film for her daughter, Sama, who was conceived and born during the five-year siege that devastated her home town. The film is intended, she says, to let Sama know who her parents were, what they believed in and why they joined the rebels who were fighting for freedom from the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad.

A young Syrian woman, Waad Al-Khateab, set out to create For Sama as a sort of video diary for her young daughter Sama, about her mother’s college days, meeting her father, falling in love, and their early life. It all sounds so ordinary and sweet – except that this story takes place in Aleppo.