For Sama

Name: For Sama
Genre: Documentary
Released: July 26, 2019
Duration: 100 min
Rating: 89
Cast: Hamza Al-Khateab, Sama Al-Khateab, Waad Al-Khateab

2019

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Ratings

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7.7

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7.7	Your Score
7.7	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 29 Ratings

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For Sama (US Trailer 1)

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Movie Details & Credits

PBS Distribution | Release Date: July 26, 2019 | Not Rated

Starring: Hamza Al-Khateab, Sama Al-Khateab, Waad Al-Khateab

Summary: For Sama is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. 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 aroundFor Sama is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. 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.

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Director: Edward Watts and Waad Al-Khateab

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 100 min

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Critic Reviews

100

RogerEbert.com Tomris Laffly

Jul 25, 2019

A devastating scrapbook and a confessional journal of sorts. It’s also a personal cinematic endeavor as opposed to a historical crash course in the vein of “Cries From Syria,” another superb documentary on the subject, but one with different ambitions. Read full review

100

G. Allen Johnson

Jul 25, 2019

What a talent Waad is. For Sama is a film made with the instincts of a journalist, the passion of a revolutionary and the beating heart of a mother. Read full review

100

The Guardian Mike McCahill

Sep 12, 2019

Sifting six years’ worth of rubble, al-Kateab turns up beauty and one earthly miracle to set alongside the horrors, but horrors there are. Read full review

Teo Bugbee

Jul 25, 2019

The activists of this film, including al-Kateab herself, don’t speak in the language of philosophers or politicians. Their quotidian aspirations — to build a garden, to send their children safely to school — demonstrate the brutality of the government’s response, but they also invite viewers to picture themselves in the shoes of these modest political dissidents. Read full review

IndieWire David Ehrlich

Jul 26, 2019

For Sama isn’t a nightmare with pockets of joy so much as it’s a collective dream that’s playing out under a cloud of impenetrable darkness. Read full review

Empire Ian Freer

Sep 11, 2019

For Sama powerfully mixes the personal and the political to thought-provoking, emotional ends. The result is one of the best documentaries of 2019. Read full review

Ann Hornaday

Nov 6, 2019

For Sama is a before-and-after portrait, both literally and figuratively. What begins as a brash, bold, giddily optimistic love story devolves into something far darker, as viewers begin to question why al-Khateab is willing to endanger her child in the name of doomed principles. Read full review

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User Reviews

CLeCrom

Oct 18, 2020

A poignant testimony to the carnage of Assad helped by the Russians on martyred Aleppo. Often unsustainable, but essential.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Mateulka

Feb 4, 2020

The best documentary I ever saw, intimate, eye-opening and a very emotional journey. Thank you Waad al-Kateab.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

DogeGamer2015

May 31, 2020

Un retrato de la realidad, nos muestra la crudeza de los conflictos humanos de una forma cautivadora.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

JLuis_001

Feb 11, 2020

For the heinous realities we know of this world and for those we can't do nothing.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

JordanLayton

Apr 28, 2020

This documentary about a journalist, a doctor, and their daughter in Aleppo in 2016 is not for the feint of heart. Obviously.

The events that unfold around this family are undoubtedly some of the hardest to watch I have ever seen and probably will ever see. This is in part due to the focusThis documentary about a journalist, a doctor, and their daughter in Aleppo in 2016 is not for the feint of heart. Obviously.

The events that unfold around this family are undoubtedly some of the hardest to watch I have ever seen and probably will ever see. This is in part due to the focus on innocent children effected by the war shown in often gruesome, uncensored, horrible detail. I think it's important that it not be censored. These are real people begging for help and receiving none. Their stories and images need to be seen. I just think a bit more warning could have been given at the start of the film. The other aspect of this doc that made it hard to watch was my complete frustration with the documentarian for staying so long in a war zone being bombed nearly constantly with her toddler daughter when she had an opportunity to leave her daughter with her parents in a safer place. She addresses this issue and makes an argument for her choices, but she didn't come remotely close to convincing me. This doc wont tell you much about the conflict, in all of its confusing minutia, but it will tell you about the people. The horrors of war are on full display here. It's on Amazon Prime now.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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