In Conversation with Bafta-Award Winning Director, Ed Watts | whynow
Published by whynow.co.uk, February 2020
We are living in the golden age of documentary filmmaking. In simple terms, there are a number of reasons for this: platforms like Netflix, which have made it easier than ever to find and consume non-fiction content; a burgeoning weariness and mistrust of mainstream media; and possibly, an increased sense of connection that’s led to the desire for a deeper understanding of the world around us. The results are palpable — we are inundated with insight on the current challenges facing the planet and mankind, and hopefully, inspired to do something about them.
As we embark on a new decade, For Sama has emerged at the forefront of the genre. Shot by Waad Al-Kateab and co-directed by Edward Watts, it tracks the demise of Aleppo, Syria; a city relentlessly pummelled by its own Assad-led government, aided by Russian fighter jets. Harrowing yet somehow hopeful, it’s one woman’s account of love, war, birth and death, and the poignancy of becoming a mother to Sama, the film’s namesake, in the midst of a war zone. The film has already triumphed at the BAFTAs with an award for Best Documentary and is nominated in the same category at the Oscars in a couple of weeks’ time.
Initially, Al-Kateab’s sole aim was to document the anti-regime protests conducted by her fellow students. But as conflict began to rain down around them, suddenly the act of picking up a camera became a symbol of resistance among the burgeoning chaos. And when friends began to lose their lives to the fight, a way to remember. Over the course of five years, she chronicled a story of modern love soundtracked by the echoes of shelling, and when she and her husband, Hamza, were eventually forced to abandon the city they’d come to love, she left with over 500 hours of footage.
Al-Kateab presented this archive to Channel 4 News, who she worked for as a civilian-journalist throughout the on-ground struggle, and was subsequently match made with Watts, a British filmmaker with a passion for raising awareness about Syria’s plight. “Ever since the Syrian revolution began I felt that it was massively significant for the world,” he explains. “I kept saying that we needed to make a film, not about ISIS but about these people, and it never flew for whatever reason. So with Waad, I knew from minute one what she and Sama represented.”
The next two years were spent untangling the dense web of footage. “The story of anyone’s life over the course of five years is a complicated one to tell,” Watts affirms. “And Waad had a kaleidoscope of stuff. For her, it was still so raw and everything was important.” Inevitably, it also took time to build trust but as the collaboration took shape a subtle but complementary dichotomy of voices emerged. “My perspective was how can we do justice to this? Because this film is so important for the world right now — not just for understanding Syria but for all of us.”
Honest, faithful storytelling is a theme that runs throughout Watts’ body of work, fuelled no doubt by a sense of curiosity instilled from a young age by his film buff dad and whip smart, journalist mum. “She was very plugged into the world with a strong sense of justice and injustice, my dad too,” he says. “So I was always yearning to get out there and fight to make it better.” Combining his parents’ two disciplines seemed a logical way to achieve that, so after reading history at Oxford University, a stint at Unreported World followed. It was here he honed in on the true nature of making documentaries.
“The best filmmakers plug into the soul, spirit and emotions of the people they’re covering,” he asserts. “Discovering the real truth of things isn’t necessarily an intellectual process but because of the length of time we have to play with, and the length of time it takes to make a doc, you’re able to appreciate the way things resonate with each other. So even if you’re making an issues film, it should still breathe the complexity and joy of human beings.” Invariably, this can lead to some difficult decisions as director — what percentage of reality do you reveal when often it’s warped, mangled and hard to watch?
“Nothing we put in the film is for shock,” Watts explains. “What made it in is a small fraction of the horror.” Nevertheless, as viewers we’re asked to sit with some deeply unsettling scenes. But it’s necessary — it’s only when feeling into the edges of that discomfort that we’re able to muster the empathy, understanding and emotion required to comprehend such tragedy, and ultimately be moved to take action. “The film captures the essence of what Syria is about, of what being a refugee is about,” he says. And in the fleeting moments of shared humanity that come when we want to avert our eyes, suddenly we’re able to feel the full force of that.
Even so, it’s tricky to strike the right balance when the story itself is so appalling. In For Sama, Watts and Al-Kateab are able to partially subvert that challenge by placing mother and daughter at the centre of the narrative, presenting a scenario so relatable that it’s able to transcend revulsion. Everything, including war, pales in comparison to Al-Kateab’s attempts to protect, explain and justify her actions to her young child. “The footage, even before Sama was born, felt like a conversation between Waad and her daughter,” says Watts. “But she’s such a humble person that initially she didn’t want to be at the heart of it. That was part of the whole journey, trying to persuade her.”
In the end, the material ended up speaking for itself. “I often say when you’re making a documentary that the film knows what it wants to be and you’re just tuning into it,” Watts muses. “It didn’t feel like a clever idea, it just felt like we tuned in.” That approach paid off — despite expecting cinema walkouts because of the graphic nature of some scenes, at the first screening they received a standing ovation, and since its international release, many more have followed. “It’s been amazing,” Watts smiles. “Because when we were making the film there was a big sense that nobody cared about Syria anymore.”
The rousing response has hopefully proven the contrary, but it’s perhaps only once the glitter of awards season has dispersed that its true legacy can begin to emerge. “The fact is that the crisis in Syria is still ongoing,” Watts explains. “The city of Idlib is currently being battered by airstrikes with almost 400,000 people displaced in the past couple of months.” It’s for this reason that an impact campaign to instigate international accountability and to stop the bombing of hospitals has run alongside the film’s promotion. Yes, recognition is important, but more than anything, the aim was to raise awareness and inspire change.
Unsurprisingly, it’s been an emotional journey for Al-Kateab, who’s simultaneously buoyed by the appreciation while remaining distraught about events unfolding in her home country. Yet in spite of this she remains positive. “It’s given her a real sense that the struggle’s not over and that all they fought for was worth it,” Watts confirms. As the curtain comes down on a parade of awards ceremonies, his lasting desire is for the film to make impact where it truly matters. “I just hope it wakes people up and that they make that connection between themselves and what these people have been through,” Watts concludes. “We need to start believing in ourselves. We need to start fighting. What binds us together is so much more important than what divides us.”
Photos by James Chapman.
