Popular reviews

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 6

  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 concrete on the floor and the wet blood on their clothes. A few years earlier, they were regular university students pursuing regular careers; now, a normal day consists of avoiding bombs and burying friends.

  Why don’t they leave? How could…

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  Review by EJ Paras ★★★★★ 2

  “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 and to take a small glimpse into the lives of those in Syria during the past few years.

  As a middle-class American, national news and world news blend together seamlessly every day — it becomes overwhelming, and the constant consumption…

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 11

  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 live life as normal, but there is no time to feel anything. The war is so normalised that babies no longer cry at the sound of bombs. How we can justify a world like this? For Sama captures the pain…

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  Review by Brian Tallerico ★★★★½ 3

  “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.

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  Review by 20oldboy03 ★★★★★ 9

  Schach, aus dem persischen Wort für „Schah“ – „der König“ unteranderem darum, ist Schach unter dem Begriff „Das Spiel der Könige“ bekannt.

  
  Die Schwarzblende schwindet. Licht hüllt es ein. Ein grellgraues Licht. Die dagegen aufbegehrenden Farben absorbierendes Licht. Wie Kalk zu hunderttausenden Tonen umhüllt das einst das Leben umarmende Gestein hochgestiegen wie Wolkenmassive zum Himmel die kopfeingezogene Stadt ein. Darin, mitten unter dem pulverisierten Gestein des darin beherbergenden Lebens, spielen zwei alte, ihr grauverhangener, bis zur Brust ragender Bart sie kitzelnd, ihre Stirn vor Falten ihrer Gedankengänge gekräuselt, zerfurcht, zu Tälern geformt, sie umringt von Zuschauern ihres hier sich ihnen bietenden Fluchtweges aus der Trauer um sie herum, das Spiel der Könige, Schach.

  Während sie spielen, hauen die Gewalten der…

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  Review by Marianna Neal ★★★★½

  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.

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★★½

  “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.” -Gandhi,

  I feel so empty...

  The best documentaries explore both individual and structural concerns and For Sama is one of the best documentaries I've seen at showing the individual costs of large scale structural violence. Many people, Americans perhaps among the worst of them, have trouble humanizing something like a rebellion abroad or war unless they have experienced it themselves (live model) or through media (symbolic model). For Sama is an important film for giving voice to those in difficult situations but for helping outsiders get a glimpse of what…

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★ 4

  This is a very personal film about how one woman went through the experiences of college and giving birth to her daughters during the traumatic events that occurred in Aleppo, Syria.

  Unfortunately, I had a horrible experience with the screeners that are really not expandable; there are two sizes: too small and too big. That didn't affect the overall rating, of course, but it did affect the overall experience.

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  Review by MK ★★★★★ 2

  For Sama is a chilling global call for help. A deeply personal look at how war can destroy everything. Powerfully graphic, this hits home and should be seen by all. No politics, the message is for family, life and freedom.

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  Review by 🌻 lindsay 🌻 ★★★★½ 5

  For Sama is such a deeply personal piece of filmmaking that it’s impossible to not be moved by it. There’s such an important story being told here and the fact that it’s a letter from a mother to her daughter makes it so heartbreaking and touching. 

  The siege that happened in Syria is such a horrific event and this documentary is so important because it’s not about the siege or the war. It’s about a family. It’s about a mother trying to give her daughter the best life she can and what’s happening in Aleppo was just the setting. It was horrifying to see them and many other families go through this for no reason. They all deserve better than this.

  Please see this documentary if you can. It may be brutal but it is honest and important.

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  Review by Will Steele ★★★★★

  In 2011, Aysha Taryam wrote:

  “At times it seems as if the whole world has become a refugee and the few of us, who are privileged enough to wake up to the sound of an alarm clock instead of a siren, those of us who are enveloped by a veil of safety many of us fail to appreciate, have become desensitised to the migrating numbers, to the images of the dead, shrugging them away as a collective misery that this ailing part of the world must endure.”

  Those words resonant so sharply after watching Waad Al-Kateab’s For Sama: a documentary which reminds its audience of the horrors the Syrian civil war has wrought for civilians caught in the crossfire. It’s one of the most harrowing and emotional documentaries I’ve ever seen. It’s not easy to watch, but it must be seen for us to know the plight caused by this injustice and to fight for peace wherever it is denied.

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  Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★★ 3

  ☆"Sama, you're the most beautiful thing in our life. But what a life I've brought you into. You didn't choose this. Will you ever forgive me?"☆

  You want a good cry? I mean, like an existence-questioning heart-clenching make-you-wanna-weep-on-your-mama's-shoulder cry?

  Waad al-Kateab and co-director Edward Watts are here with For Sama, the story of five years of the Syrian War in Aleppo, filmed as a love letter to Waad's eponymous young daughter. As she has sacrificed so much to remain in the country amidst the early years of brutal government suppression, she has faced with the decision of whether to stay in the nation she loves or leave the city with her family, to protect Sama's life.

  Prix L’Œil d’Or winner…