For Sama: raising a baby in a warzone

Ahead of the UK TV premiere of the critically acclaimed documentary For Sama, we talk to Channel 4 News filmmaker and award-winning director Waad al-Kateab and her husband Dr Hamza al-Kateab. For Sama is 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.

The Syrian conflict is now in its ninth year and over the last month has become even more complicated and intractable. The Turkish incursion into areas formerly controlled by the Kurds has allowed Assad to reassert control over most of the country, amid continued accusations of war crimes.

And in the west of the country, the last major rebel controlled area, Idlib province, which has a population swollen by displaced people to around four million, continues to suffer daily bombardment.

For Sama is on Channel 4 at 9pm on Saturday.