It will be difficult to find a piece of work at the Cannes Film Festival that is more emotionally devastating and depressingly timely than Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts's award-winning documentary, For Sama. Constructed using footage entirely drawn from an extraordinary archive shot by Kateab in Aleppo over five tumultuous years, the film brings the heartbreaking conflict in Syria, and the resilience and suffering of its people, to the screen with such immediacy and force that you stagger away at the end feeling drained and enraged, but also inspired.
For the directors – they reject being called co-directors in the context of their collaboration – For Sama is a riposte to the distortions that the Bashar Al Assad regime and its supporters have promulgated about the conflict, with catastrophic consequences for people on the ground.
Part of the reason Watts was introduced to Kateab, after she was evacuated from Aleppo in December 2016, he says, when I meet the filmmakers in London, was because he’d been “spending the whole time since the revolution saying to people that I felt the conflict and what was happening was being misrepresented, and that we were falling into the trap laid by the propaganda machines of the regime … I felt, all the time, that people were missing what was actually going on.”
Kateab, who began filming using a mobile phone when it was clear that the peaceful protests she was taking part in with fellow students from the University of Aleppo were being denied by the regime, regards her footage as "very big evidence that the people who are there are Syrians and not, as the regime was saying, all strangers and terrorists."
As an ordinary Syrian citizen, she knew the truth. She knew, too, that “at any moment we could be killed.” So, she began recording as much of what she saw and experienced as possible, hopeful but uncertain that she would still be around to decide later what to do with the footage.
The beginning of the film captures the short-lived optimism of the uprising, when people, Kateab recalls, thought "we could really change not just our lives in Syria, but the whole world". The "regime was criminal", she says, but no one expected Assad to crack down with an ongoing campaign of violence and terror. "Unfortunately, everything went the wrong way."
For Sama is Kateab's fightback, not just for herself, but "for all the people I lost, for all the people killed in Aleppo, and in all other places after us and before us. For me, it's very important to say: 'This is what happened,'" she says.
Watts, who won an International Emmy for the documentary Escape from Isis, was amazed by the breadth of her material. Kateab hadn't just recorded the horrors of life in a city where violent death became commonplace, and Russian airstrikes brought widespread destruction and fear, but also her blossoming romance with a young doctor, Hamza; their wedding, the cosy home where they hoped to build a life together, despite the conflict; her delight at learning she's pregnant with their first child, Sama, and their warm interactions with friends and co-workers.
Light and dark, life and death, it had everything, and the filmmakers found a way to accommodate many shades by using a non-linear approach that gave them more control, says Watts, and stopped the narrative from simply starting in a “happy place” and sliding, chronologically, “into this pit of darkness”. For much of the time, Kateab lived above the emergency room of a hospital Hamza helped set up in east Aleppo after the regime lost control of the area to rebels.
She filmed the injured, the dead and the dying (a lot of them children) who passed through it, and during the six-month siege of the city in 2016, filed unforgettable reports with Channel 4 News in the UK. Versions of two of her most powerful dispatches – about three brothers and a “miracle baby” – offer some of the documentary’s emotional peaks, for opposite reasons. “I was like the hospital staff,” says Kateab. “I used to see these people, I used to engage with them, and I used to expect that myself or Hamza would be like them one day.”
The horror was constant – her dreams became the colour of blood – but it never became routine. “Everything you see, even if you saw bigger before, it still affects you like the first time,” she sighs. Hospitals should have been places of safety, but they were deliberately targeted. Just before Putin’s intervention in the conflict, Kateab and Hamza had made the difficult decision to have a child because although the situation was bad, they couldn’t imagine it getting much worse.
However: "From when the Russians started in September 2015, it was very clear that there were no limits." There had been bombing and massacres before, and ISIS had a brief presence in Aleppo, "but we thought the situation was under control, or it could be controlled … when the Russians came, the balance was very different".
I feel a lot of guilt that I am out and I can't do anything for these people. So, maybe, with this film, I can go to the people, let them watch it, and maybe something will change.
The conflict isn’t a civil war, say the filmmakers. “If it had been, Assad wouldn’t be there and all this wouldn’t have happened,” argues Watts. “It was very insane levels of intervention by outside forces that have allowed this guy to stay where he is.”
Kateab hasn’t forgotten the sound the Russian warplanes made, which was “much scarier than when we’d see the barrel bombs falling.” When she was editing the documentary with Watts at his house in London, the rumble of a nearby Tube train made her suddenly think they were under attack. “It’s my mind,” she says. “It’s not processed anything. I was still feeling that I’m there [in Aleppo].”
Forced into exile with Sama, Hamza, and their then-unborn second child, Taima, Kateab still isn’t ready to let go. “The most difficult thing is that I am happy that I am still there [in my head]. I don’t want to be out of this story.” She reveals that she is trying to recreate her old house using VR. “I don’t know if it’s mad, but I really love that place and really want to stay feeling all my life that we stayed in Aleppo.” Watts is surprised: “That’s the first time you’ve said that,” he offers gently, “and I think it makes a lot of sense.”
She cannot return to Syria while Assad is still in power. In 2014, the security forces had come looking for her, so she adopted the false name Kateab. The day before For Sama was screened for the first time, her parents left Syria, and have no intention of returning.
"I feel a lot of guilt that I am out and I can't do anything for these people," says Kateab pensively. "So, maybe, with this film, I can go to the people, let them watch it, and maybe something will change."
For Sama screens at Cannes Film Festival today
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Sebastian Stefan, Sebastian Morar and Claudia Pacurar
Based: Dubai, UAE
Founded: 2014
Number of employees: 36
Sector: Logistics
Raised: $2.5 million
Investors: DP World, Prime Venture Partners and family offices in Saudi Arabia and the UAE
match details
Wales v Hungary
Cardiff City Stadium, kick-off 11.45pm
CHELSEA'S NEXT FIVE GAMES
Mar 10: Norwich(A)
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Apr 2: Brentford(H)
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Always use only regulated platforms
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Why are you, you?
From this question, a new beginning.
From this question, a new destiny.
For you are a world, and a meeting of worlds.
Our dream is to unite that which has been
separated by history.
To return the many to the one.
A great story unites us all,
beyond colour and creed and gender.
The lightning flash of art
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We reflect all cultures, all ways.
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We connect, we inspire, we multiply illuminations
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Ben Okri,
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Test squad: Azhar Ali (captain), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Imam-ul-Haq, Imran Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Kashif Bhatti, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan(wicketkeeper), Musa Khan, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi, Shan Masood, Yasir Shah
Twenty20 squad: Babar Azam (captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Sohail, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Musa Khan, Shadab Khan, Usman Qadir, Wahab Riaz
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
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A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
Tell Me Who I Am
Director: Ed Perkins
Stars: Alex and Marcus Lewis
Four stars
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Wolves 1
Boly (57')
Manchester City 1
Laporte (69')
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MATCH INFO
Al Jazira 3 (O Abdulrahman 43', Kenno 82', Mabkhout 90 4')
Al Ain 1 (Laba 39')
Red cards: Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Generation Start-up: Awok company profile
Started: 2013
Founder: Ulugbek Yuldashev
Sector: e-commerce
Size: 600 plus
Stage: still in talks with VCs
Principal Investors: self-financed by founder
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
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Specs
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MATCH INFO
Fixture: Ukraine v Portugal, Monday, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: BeIN Sports
Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
Ibrahim's play list
Completed an electrical diploma at the Adnoc Technical Institute
Works as a public relations officer with Adnoc
Apart from the piano, he plays the accordion, oud and guitar
His favourite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach
Also enjoys listening to Mozart
Likes all genres of music including Arabic music and jazz
Enjoys rock groups Scorpions and Metallica
Other musicians he likes are Syrian-American pianist Malek Jandali and Lebanese oud player Rabih Abou Khalil