Hello, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My guests today are the filmmakers and subjects of the Oscar nominated documentary For Sama. The film powerfully shows the bravery and idealism of Syrians who are fighting for political freedom, and it shows the depravity of the Assad regime. But much more than that, For Sama is a sad but hopeful story about starting a family as everything else you
know and love is ripped away. In two thousand eleven, as the Syrian Uprising got underway, For Sama, co director Wad al Khatib was in college in Aleppo. She was from a middle class family and her fiance's parents were living abroad. They could have gotten out, but chose not to, and then they were trapped, and then ward was pregnant.
She started filming everything, the protests, the shelling of her husband, holmsa's hospital, even tea with friends, under the constant threat of death, and as she films, her pregnancy becomes more and more apparent. Wad eventually gives birth and starts to raise her daughter, Sama in a city under siege. After the family is finally forced to flee, she meets filmmaker Edward Watts in London. Together they edit the film Watts.
Wad and her husband Dr hamsa Al Kateb joined me at a live event at last year's Hampton's International Film Festival. I wanted to understand what would make educated people with access to comfortable lives be willing to risk everything to change their government. I will speak personally. We never felt proud that we are Syrian. Everything in Syria since I
grow up, it's all related to Assad family. The main thing that they always in the media trying to show the Syrian regime propaganda that said he's the doctor was in Britain and he's like uh there and they were like this democratic family and all of that, while the reality is all of our life. When we were in school, half of the said his father, we were calling him
the only words that the immortal leader. That's it. And now like all in like before the revolution, before two eleven, the country in all the media and the newspaper and everything, it's called Assad Syria. It was nothing like surprising for us that the country was run by a dictatorship. Had they known democrats you prior to the a Sad family before a lot of political parties, election for the parliament
member and all of that. But after Las said, it's all become based on one party, which is a Bath party, the same party that was also in Iraq in Bath Party. And then after that just nobody became interest in politics because you know that it's just run by this family.
It's rune by this party. And the only thing, the only thing that I still remember my my parents who are telling me, like, mind your own business, graduate from university and just please leave the country to like practice medicine in Germany or in the UK, and just stay there and don't talk anything about politics, like not even in in in the university, like don't dream to become like one of the like school membership. And is that the predominant mindset is when you can you get out
of here. You don't stay Yeah, because you have built your dreams in such a country. You know each other part of the corrupted system to be like to get employed or you just My my parents lived in Saudi
Arabia for twenty eight years after immediately they graduated. They were both mathematic teachers, so they both graduated university and then traveled to Saudi Arabia teaching there for twenty eight years to afford to buy a house, and their only advice like, please, son, just we did all of that for you to get to university, finish your school and come to Saudi Arabia. Just they want you to come,
but you didn't. Yeah, why Basically after the revolution, which personally I didn't expect at all that it will start in Syria, Like I didn't think that we will dare to stand against the Lessa, and when it started, we we we felt like we this is our country, belongs here and we have now a say in the future
of this country, so everyone should participant. And then day by day, demonstration after demonstration, we personally and I think a lot of other Syrians felt like, as I said, we had a say here in this country and it's now our responsibility to stay here till till the end. Yeah. In two thousand and eleven, I felt like, I'm Syrian, and I'm proud of being Syrian, and I really want
to stay and do what I want to do. And before even we knew each other, both of us has a different plan to go out, and like as really many other people, we like canceled that and just stayed to do what we believe in How did you connect? I was very passionate about what's been happening in Syria since the beginning, because I felt that we've never seen anything like it, to see people peacefully protesting in the way that they were and being met with a level
of violence that was just unprecedented. I felt since the Second World War. You know, we have this event in England called Bloody Sunday, which is like a huge stain when soldiers shot ten protesters, and these guys were facing ten bloody son days every week, and they were still coming back and peacefully protesting and not resorting to violence.
And so for years I've been saying, can we please make a film not about ISIS and not about all those distractions, but about people like these two amazing guys, middle class people just like us, with our education, who are asking for the things that we'll take for granted. And so for years I've been saying that. But it
was only after Wad left that people realized. She came out after the tragic events you saw, came to London with these war battered hard drives that literally bore the stains and wounds of war, and said, look what should we do with this this huge pile of material. I came in to help her craft craft the films. What kind of work were you doing before the What kind of films were you making? I was making lots of
films about trouble places around the world. I did. I did do one about Isis, which was about the Zidi women who had been kidnapped and an amazing, brave group of people who were trying to help them escape from ices captivity. I've been to Congo, I've been to Afghanistan, Yemen, had been to a lot of difficult places. You basically trying to get people to see that people in these places are not some alien species, they're not barbarians. They are just like us, and we have something at stake
in their fate around the world. We need to change the way that we look at the world so it's not like us over here we're okay and they're in trouble, and you know it's a shame, but what the hell. We're all connected. And I think Syria more than any other conflict proves that. Now you meet with Edward after the fact, and so you're shooting, you're there, are you the camera operator? And I was the boss to myself. You were you directed yourself. You're like the orson wells
of Syria. Uh. But but the your inne level and the sense you get, of course, is that at any given moment you could be dead, you personally and your children and your husband. A given moment, the bombs are gonna drop and you're gonna get hit, as as in other areas. Yeah, And this is one of the things why I kept filming and why I filmed everything, why I was like very obsessed about like filming even if we were asleep, because I felt that any moment could
be the last minute. And I'm here, I have that chance now to film this and I will be killed. I will not do a film. And I wasn't really planning of what I will do in the all this material. I was like, yeah, I'm here now, I know that this is so important. I know if I've been killed, like this material will be something someone outside will use
it one day. But what I need to do now that just make sure that this person who will take this this material will have a lot of like blenty choices to choose what story he was now Prior to two thousand and eleven, I'm assuming the population of a
lepod was one thing, and then I diminished considerable. And when you were in a lepo, did you happen to live in an area that was less likely to get bombed like there was other thing whether things they were trying to bomb, like power stations and media stations, Were they're trying to bomb certain targets and you were not in that area or were you just as vulnerable as everybody. We both from west part of Alippo, where it was
under the regime control all the time. So in two thousand twelve, when uh it's part of a Lippo's announced that non control area which was under the Free Syrian Army, the people who carry wobon. So we moved to that area because that was like a blaze out of the gym control. It was safe that the regime can't arrest you, but it's not safe because the regime started bombing. So we were living in that place. We knew that this
is now a free play area. There's many people who came to this place to live because they don't want to live under the region control anymore. And it was just a very strange life. Everything from zero there's no basic services. There's nothing, and that's why from the set up the hospital, so that place was just like a new city where there's really no one and people start
like to come and start their new life in that place. Basically, I like I wish that we were vulnerable as the other people because the region was just bunishing everyone who's living there. That the main purpose was to make life as like impossible for for the people, and like this is what happened when you're living not under my control.
But basically they we always know and everyone, all the civilians knew that the hospitals are the main targets of the regime, the backery, to the schools, every every place where people can be like living normally or they want like some services, they were being like attacked more than any other place. So like I had some patience and I sometimes need to admit like a patient for for
five days the hospital. He was telling me, like, can you give me just the I V drugs and I will get him home, Like you know, a doctor, it's just difficult to look to stay five days in a hospital just dangerous. Sometimes like a mother will leave her children there and she said, like I trust you that you will take care of him, but I will not stay here for like six days until the child will
like a discharge from from the hospital. When we moved the hospital, there was like a small military base for for the s A fighters, and we literally displaced them. They just run away. They moved because the hospital was there, and she was like, oh, it's too dangerous to leave
our weapons next to you. We just move. Just to go back a little bit to describe your own backgrounds, you studied medicine where I studied medicine in faculty of Medicine in a university starting two thousand and five, graduated for Bright two thousand and twelve my last year, and usually practicing in the university hospital. So I was participated in in the demonstrations at the university, the one that
you've seen in the beginning of the film. I graduated the brewery decided basically my main dream just to travel to Germany and the train as a neurosurgeon. So but I decided like, okay, I'll stay in the country until less it is down for a few maybe months, and then go to Germany. But here we are, now, what is your background in filmmaking? How did that begin? For you where and when I was from myself host like
every other people around the world, you filmed yourself at home. Okay, you didn't got a film school and study film, No you didn't. I was. I did economics and then I was in the university when the revolution started. So I was the first demonstration, the second, third one. We've started, like many people in the protest, filming what was happening because we felt that this is something very important. And when did that start for you? When did you feel
the urges are documenting what was happening around you? Like I think the third protest I joined, start like filming with my phone, and then after maybe like other for protests, I started like filming before the protest and with some people, asking them about what they feel. And at that time you can't show any phase of these people. So like most of these interviews was like like from here to down, which is like it's not working for anything. Did you
get your first camera? The first camera I had? It was the first scene when you've seen did the camera come from? So I'm sure that there were a lot of camera stores opening a lapo. No, there was like it was really a crime to have a camera so I got it from a friend. It was sony hand handy one, very small, and I couldn't take it out from my bag. He was all the time, yeah, and into my bag all the time, and I make holes
in many bags I have. So that protest was the first time I really liked there that I can't take my camera and put it out because like, this protest was like thousands of people. So I was like, I don't care whatever will happen. This is very important to be fun. So I've talked it out and start filming. And how many other people were doing that at the time. I don't think there was any camera. I'm like, because no one was like thinking beyond what was happening. It
was more about news on Facebook. But I was like, okay, I love filming and I really enjoyed that. So I was That's why my friend who has the camera, he didn't use it. He give it to me because you think that this is a stupid care she will film by me. This is too dangerous. I want to ask you, Edward, so how do you interact with them for the first time when you get the footage? We were match made to be honest, as I say, when wed revealed that
she had this archive of over five hundred hours. Incredible revealed to our colleagues at because she'd done some stuff for Channel for News, so a couple of bits of her footage had been seen on the news and as you see in the film, you know they've got with these likes and shares on Facebook. But you arrived in London when with the footage two thousand seventeen February, one
month after we left a repo. I went to London because I was working at Channel for News in two thousands sixteen and we were nominated to some like so you were getting stuff to them and like just a little bit less than eight minutes, you had a presence in the UK media and then you wind up meeting with him. Yeah. What happened, well, essentially was like a
blind date. So we met each other and just started talking and wad and basically we just had a conversation about what she wanted to do with the footage and what and when she started showing it to me, we just sat for eight days with her scrubbing through this stuff and showing just some fraction of what she gathered, and I just knew that it was the most extraordinary archive of documentary footage that I was aware of, because not only did it capture all the horror and the
difficult times as you've seen, but it just captured the full spectrum of human life. There, the joy, the jokes. I mean, my experience of being in conflict zones is how much humor there is. That's what people do to keep themselves going, you know, to support each other, and you often only hear about all the terrible things they've done. You don't hear enough about what the best part of human beings in those situations. And yet this amazing woman had managed to capture it on film, and you know
you must know this. You know, normally when you start a project, the question is right, we've got an idea, like how good will this be? But when I sat with her and we saw this footage, I was like, this should be amazing, like and it's our responsibility to do justice to these guys stories and to what she'd managed to capture. Edward Watts alongside the four SAMA co director wad Al Kateb and her husband Dr hamsa Olcatib.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym m SF is currently active near it Lib, the last Syrian rebel stronghold. It's where wand and harms of fled after militias drove them out of Aleppo. Dr Joanne Lou just stepped down after six years as MSF's international president. She and I talked about what it was like working in war torn Zechenia. You are bringing other people in danger.
We were on the attack on a regular basis, that's one thing, but the threat of being abducted was so huge, and we knew that if something were ever to happen to the MSF staff, then we will pull out, So we were praying for not It was so nerve wracking out of fear. Yeah, and I hate that because you know this, this is so self center and compared to what all those people are going through. Come on, get
a grip on yourself. The rest of my conversation with Joanne Lou is in our archives that here's the thing, Dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing. When they began their filmmaking collaboration, wad Al Katibu handed her London based collaborator Edward Watts, over five hours of footage from inside Aleppo. And that wasn't all of it. I mean she was still bringing out footage on a couple of weeks ago. I was saying, hey, what did
we never use this? I was like, stop, please see the two of you like at home in bed, and she's like, arms, wake up. Actually it was really annoying because it's necessary, right, and she was spending everything, and since she's the wife, I can't say anything, so just supports, you deal, your pay and like, I always felt that whatever you think about will happen, So I wanted the attraction law and all of that. So I always was positive, like we're going to live. Nothing will happen to the hospital,
everything is fine, We're going to get victory. And what was always like filming like because you want to capture everything whenever happens. And I was always like, you're just terrifying me. I feel like I'm going to die now, just please stop. I'm going to live. But it's interesting that in the film you do get that sense and you don't want to project something. When did you shoot and when did you not shoot? Were there any rules? I don't shoot when the battery is empty. This is
the only get to charge. Yeah, I was filming at the two thousand and eleven and twelves like normally as any other filmmaker could films like things that you think that this is important, this is could be something important. But then like in two thousand and thirteen, I was like more filming because I get the sense of that
strange life. But then like suddenly we've been in hospital for the first six months and I was like shooting us like in the mascret or eating or something, and then suddenly like two of the people who we lived with, there's just like being killed. And at that moment, I felt like every minute could be the last one, and
it's so important for us to keep that. And I think even you said that one time that at that moment, I felt like, no, we need all this life to be saved, whatever the situation was, and because really I felt that I could be killed now, so this is important. I didn't feel at at any footage I've got that there's something it could be not important. You had cards, obviously digital cards that were files that filled up, and
did you have problems getting more and more supplies? Was it difficult or did you have a pipeline to get that stuff because of your relationship with the British television states. Yeah, the British television relation was in two thousands sixteen, which is just the last year, but everything before was I was on and even on my relationship with them, they support me a lot that like emotionally because they don't
have any chance to get anything inside. But Alippo was not a small city, and there there was a Jurkish border which is opened, so there's a trade always. You have everything. You can buy a drone if you want to buy a drone, and you shot with the drone, I could tell Yeah, I thought, I thought, I'm looking at the landscape thinking, I don't think there's any buildings that were tall enough for you to stand in the window to shoot those shot you shot with the drone. Yeah,
did you go to Turkey? No. I got it from also another friend who brought it before, but he didn't work on that. So the first like ten times I was just going with him teach me how to do this. So also the footage that you've seen, it's not very good. Actually, this is like a little bit of what I could capture, which is good, and it's seen a lot of like miss of some things like where you can did you crash the drone a few times? Yes? Yeah, it's been
like act you. I was very lucky that I did that last scene and then the day after that it was like I didn't work. But also like there's a very big problems always happened. Was like the laptop and they s the card and the charger of this, and then it's very really I don't know, but small things, but it's very the power go out over time. This is another problem which you have specific time to do this, or if you are in the hospital, there's better than
if you are at home. But it's all like, for example, my my Mike was damage in one place and there's one scene from that damage Mike, but I don't have any other one after this. So it was like a lot of obstrutting things, but it's done in the end. Now you're obviously you're a physician, and you stayed because you felt an obligation to your community. Exactly. That's what happened because we we had a chance to leave Semma with my parents in Turkey before going back to Apple.
But the first thing that came to both of our minds that what life its child will have, Like if she just grew away from her parents, we might be killed or we might be sieged for five years and she will just grow up with her grandparents for five years. So we just like that we'll just stay together as a family. Whatever we were facing, we're facing it together.
And also we felt, as you said, very responsible for to being part of this community, Like it's not when the hardest time, we say like, oh now we're taking like the safe side and it's just only you because we were part of them. And I feel like we're like traitor if we just take the safe side and just escape. But eventually you do live, event you do
the well, what's the breaking point? When do you say to yourself, I wanna let me have your opinion about her, Like we didn't live really like we were forced to flee out and like a lipple. When we left, there was no one at all like the Russian and a sad regime was the Turkish government and do you and they decided that all these people who are in Alppho will be displaced out and the regime will control this. So even this there was no option for us to
stay or not to stay. We were the last convoy who left Aleppo and Alipano or under the regime control. We're struggling to stay. Basically all that we we went, the decision was made for you exactly just the final days we were like seed in around two square kilometers only surrounded by the Iranian forces, covered by the Russian work crafts. And then Turkey came to the militias that controlling our area that this is your only option. Either will come inside and we don't guarantee what the Iranians
will do. You either get out or whoever wants to say, can stay. So basically all the fighters, doctors, activist, journalist, teachers, with their families and children, they just went out. The woman who's cooking the rice, who were the head scarf? What is her name? She's a she's your friend. Yes. Have you still remained in touch with them at all?
We stayed like every day they are in Turkey in Ghaza top and we were just like the last August we had holiday for three weeks we spent together and they've like good, doing very well, but it's still like not that get good life in Turkey. It's a lot of rasism and the kids not very happy at school, but they are like safe, doing very very good in Turkey. When you immediately leave a Luba, where do you go? We went to Atlib for two weeks is the last
area out of regime control. Whereas the Times articles speaks about this hospital and we've we stayed there two weeks until we've got a permission because from the doctor to cross the Turkish border to see our families. Since that time, we've never went back. And you went to Turkey for how long we stayed? One year and a half until we moved to London? And why London? Why you got
the visa British a lot, my friends a lot. Now, when you get this footage and you sit down and you work with Ward, what were some of the biggest decisions you had in terms of what stays? I mean because obviously in a film like this there's so much suffering and there's so much and you have to put the right amount that in the mix. What were some of the difficult choices out Everyone had a particular scene that mattered a lot to them on the whole team
that they wish we could have included. I mean, there was one scene the hands are brought up right when we were about to lock the film, he said, why couldn't we put that in? And I was like, it's done, which is an extraordinary thing. It's like a film from a scene from a Hollywood film where you see these guys walking down the street. They're just like very small and a sniper comes shooting at them and basically hits around their feet and they all go yeah, they jump
over a wall. This uh. This like video was filmed by someone who we don't know, and we met him like two years after that, and he was like telling one of our friends that he has seen he ticked from the window for people walking in that and then my friend was like, show me this and then they recognize us, so they give us this video. So even like it's really strange things and if someone told you this, you will not like trust that's true, But when you
see this you can like see us both. There was so much, but I think the thing that we wanted to do was make a film that like you guys coming in off the sunny streets of like that East Hampton could go to a lepar for an hour and a half, you know, and that you could be there and you could feel what these guys went through, understand it and bear it because in the earlier versions, you know, some of the cuts that we did early on, we showed it to our friends and family and they were
overwhelmed because it went too dark. And so one of our big things is getting the movement between the light and the dark, when you know, when you've been hammered, you had a moment where you could just draw breath, where we just had an uncut shot of Samma just being amazing, where you could just settle down and think, right,
there is still good in life in the world. We've really tried to do find a way to give the right reflection of the true experience because like after everything we went to though, we're still like very strong and very we still like stand and keep fighting for the for this as we were there, and just like the true experience of this is not like people who have been like attacking in these places and then in the end they are really lost or really not feeling good.
So in in that new structure which we did the last one you've seen now, it's more about like going between the dark and light and giving the people the understanding like why we stayed and just how much hope there was. I mean, that was the thing, you know,
after all these guys have been through. When I met them for the first time and got to know them, you just felt how much hope they had, how much they look back on This experience actually is an important one and a positive one in their lives, despite the way it ended. And that was so important to convey because there is always hope. Frankly speaking, I've lost top because basically we've tried everything, like I've I've done a petition that was signed by eight hundred thousand people in
different countries demanding the world leaders too to interfere. I've done so many, like I can't countless interviews with media we've known with this film. Now, I think it's in our hand just to save the narrative for the future, hoping that one day accountability will happen. And I said, now has it's controlling eighty percent of Syria and that's it. So the only thing is just to keep the awareness, keep talking about it. There's countless war crimes that has happened,
there are countless witnesses, and one day accountability should happen. Uh. Your Syrian heritage is obviously important to you, how do you keep it a life for your daughters now that you're living in London. Like, she knows very well where she is from, and this is the first thing. I was like, where are you from? And she said, like Syria and Alippo. I've showed her some of the wedding scene and her relationship with Nya for example, which is Nya the little daughter which she is in the film too.
We've tried any a lot now to keep speaking Arabic atomb so they can still like feel the atmosphere. She can see a lot of pictures on the wall and a lot of things related to Syria and our home home. The main thing that's only for Cem, but all the we hope but this film will do for all the next generation, to save the narratives, save the history of what what really happened in Syria, because still the moment, most of the news, most of the reports are about ices.
Most of the U. N and w h O statements was all in passive voice, that that hospitals were bombed, words like if war in Syria, those killing each other and all of that. So we hoped from this film for Cement for everyone, just to save for the next generation that what happened Isa was a revolution, was peaceful people trying to claim their rights and they were faced with the hardest attacks by all the evil triangle in
the world, like Russian and the regime, the Iranians. And that's what we hope when she grew up, she will know exactly where she's coming from. Is there another film about the life you've made now? No? No, your husband just both stand for us. Don't point out camera me. No, really we what we're trying to do more now with the rest of the footage that I have. It's more about trying to build a basic um like place for them to be used in some low suit for court
against the regime and Russians. Co director Edward watts hams alcateb what sorry. Just before everybody goes, people need to get motivated to do something, and we're trying to use the incredible reaction to help make a difference in Syria. We're launching a campaign called Action for Samma. Are simple message that we're beginning with is stop bombing hospitals. That's our tagline. We could use your help, so please follow Action for Samma. Help us in whatever way you can
thank you very much for me. Thank you. That was Edward Watts, what alcatib and Dr Hams a rctibe. The website of their organization is action for Samma dot org. Their movie is available streaming on PBS. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. Four four