A devastating, deeply personal war documentary that turns lived experience into urgent testimony. It is emotionally punishing, but also humane, intimate, and formally powerful, with rare access to both the collapse of a city and the persistence of family life inside it.
For Sama
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Documentary · War
Fri · 1h 40m
Director: Edward Watts, Waad al-Kateab
Starring: Sama Al-Khateab, Hamza Al-Khateab, Waad al-Kateab
Overview
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
Director
Edward Watts, Waad al-Kateab
Cast
Sama Al-Khateab, Hamza Al-Khateab, Waad al-Kateab
Curator Review
Verdict
A devastating, deeply personal war documentary that turns lived experience into urgent testimony. It is emotionally punishing, but also humane, intimate, and formally powerful, with rare access to both the collapse of a city and the persistence of family life inside it.
Best for
viewers who want immersive, first-hand war reporting
audiences drawn to intimate mother-and-child stories
fans of urgent, socially conscious nonfiction filmmaking
people interested in the Syrian civil war and humanitarian crises
Skip if
you want a light or uplifting watch
you are sensitive to graphic wartime injury and civilian suffering
you prefer distance, neutrality, or clean journalistic detachment
you’re not in the mood for an emotionally overwhelming documentary
Overview
For Sama is one of those documentaries that feels less like a film than a dispatch from inside history. Built from Waad al-Kateab’s footage over five years in Aleppo, it captures the daily mechanics of survival with extraordinary immediacy: hospital corridors, shelling, births, grief, and the stubborn routines people create to remain human under siege.
Worth noting
What makes it so devastating is the collision between the personal and the political. This is a film about war, but it is also a love letter to a child, and that framing gives every image a painful tenderness. The camera never lets the scale of the catastrophe erase the small, intimate acts of care that keep life going.
Bottom line
It is difficult to watch, sometimes almost unbearable, but it is never exploitative. The filmmaking is clear-eyed and morally urgent, and its power comes from witness rather than rhetoric. For viewers willing to meet it on its own terms, it is essential viewing.
Top Letterboxd reviews
davidehrlich (4★) · 409 likes
Towards the beginning of Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ “For Sama” — a bracingly horrific yet resiliently beautiful documentary about al-Kateab’s experience as a woman, a patriot, and a mother living in the ruined heart of Aleppo during the ongoing war in Syria — a few medical volunteers are seen messing around in a hospital during a break from the shelling. They’re young and smiling and you would never know what they were living through if not for the blasted
EJ Paras (5★) · 263 likes
“I don’t want to die, I want to live.”“I keep filming.” Dear Sama, your parents are incredible, brave, and amazing people. The existence of this film is a testament to the strength and fortitude of the people. “This is not about the place, places are about their people.” This is an intense, devastating, and crushing documentary film made by Waad al-Kateab. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it should be required viewing for all people, to gain an understanding… more
Darren Carver-Balsiger (4.5★) · 192 likes
For Sama is an act of witness, a document of events that cannot be dramatised. It is the most personal form of history. It turns film itself into memory. It is a letter to a child born in war. For Sama takes us right to the heart of the conflict in Syria. It is about a filmmaker by circumstance, which is perhaps the most necessary voice of all. For Sama captures desperation and chaos. People try to establish routines and… more
Brian Tallerico (4.5★) · 157 likes
“Sometimes we cry blood.” Arguably the doc of the year. A devastating blend of the personal and the journalistic that is unsparing and literally painful. I was on the verge of tears and breathing heavy for about an hour. Major filmmaking.
Marianna Neal 🇺🇦 (4.5★) · 148 likes
This was one of the hardest documentaries to watch for me, if not THE hardest. Heartbreaking from beginning to end. I honestly don't know how Waad found the strength to get through all of this and to still have hope.
A formally daring war memory film that turns trauma into a haunting act of reconstruction.
Themes
war and civilian survival, motherhood, parenthood under crisis, witness and testimony, siege and displacement, medical frontline work, love amid devastation, humanitarian collapse
Topics
war documentary, Syrian civil war, humanitarian crisis, motherhood, siege, survival, first-person footage, medical frontline, trauma, emotional