For Sama (2019)

There has been a documentary, whether it be feature length, short, or both, that has been nominated for an Academy Award every year over the course of the Assad war on his own people.  This year two full length documentaries come from within Syria, and one short documentary chronicles the aftermath for refugees.
This film is framed as a mother’s letter to her young daughter and opening with footage of an airstrike as experienced from inside the target zone, the exceptional footage drops us into the thick of things from the start.
The film resembles a home video from a bomb site. Waad al-Kateab took up the camera in 2012 to document the protests of her fellow students against  the regime. She kept filming as her home town of Aleppo fell under siege, turning from the carnage only to record her growing affection for a doctor, Hamza, and the birth of their first child, Sama.
These vignettes shot over years comprise the most compelling screen study yet of how this conflict blitzed everyday life. The new mother struggles to put the youngster to bed as terrifyingly loud shells explode; she notes the insecurity that comes from seeing friends shot down and your neighborhood pummeled into craters. Sama derives from the Arabic for sky, yet here the name becomes synonymous with hope, a promise of better times to be protected at any cost.  THe ending is not a happy or a hopeful one.