For Sama has won Best Independent Film, along with three other accolades, at the British Independent Film Awards.
The film is Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ first feature documentary film and has already been showered in prizes, including the Prix L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, and the Special Jury Prize for International Feature Documentary at the Hot Docs Festival.
Described as a “love letter” from mother to daughter, For Sama follows the experience of one young woman living through war-torn Syria.
We watch as Waad al-Kateab falls in love, gets married, has a baby, and fights for her survival during the uprising in Aleppo. Waad is faced with a choice: should she leave the city to ensure her daughter’s safety, or stay to ensure that all of her previous sacrifices in the name of freedom are not in vain?
For Sama beat Armando Ianucci’s The Personal History of David Copperfield, along with Wild Rose, In Fabric and The Souvenir for the Best Independent Film award.
The award for Best Director was jointly awarded to Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts for the Syria documentary, and For Sama also won the awards for Best Documentary and Best Editing.
Empire wrote that “For Sama powerfully mixes the personal and the political to thought-provoking, emotional ends. The result is one of the best documentaries of 2019.”
#Peace.Love.ForSama
