Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: My guests today are the filmmakers and subjects of the
Speaker 1: Oscar nominated documentary For Sama. The film powerfully shows the
Speaker 1: bravery and idealism of Syrians who are fighting for political freedom,
Speaker 1: and it shows the depravity of the Assad regime. But
Speaker 1: much more than that, For Sama is a sad but
Speaker 1: hopeful story about starting a family as everything else you
Speaker 1: know and love is ripped away. In two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: as the Syrian Uprising got underway, For Sama, co director
Speaker 1: Wad al Khatib was in college in Aleppo. She was
Speaker 1: from a middle class family and her fiance's parents were
Speaker 1: living abroad. They could have gotten out, but chose not to,
Speaker 1: and then they were trapped, and then ward was pregnant.
Speaker 1: She started filming everything, the protests, the shelling of her husband,
Speaker 1: holmsa's hospital, even tea with friends, under the constant threat
Speaker 1: of death, and as she films, her pregnancy becomes more
Speaker 1: and more apparent. Wad eventually gives birth and starts to
Speaker 1: raise her daughter, Sama in a city under siege. After
Speaker 1: the family is finally forced to flee, she meets filmmaker
Speaker 1: Edward Watts in London. Together they edit the film Watts.
Speaker 1: Wad and her husband Dr hamsa Al Kateb joined me
Speaker 1: at a live event at last year's Hampton's International Film Festival.
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand what would make educated people with
Speaker 1: access to comfortable lives be willing to risk everything to
Speaker 1: change their government. I will speak personally. We never felt
Speaker 1: proud that we are Syrian. Everything in Syria since I
Speaker 1: grow up, it's all related to Assad family. The main
Speaker 1: thing that they always in the media trying to show
Speaker 1: the Syrian regime propaganda that said he's the doctor was
Speaker 1: in Britain and he's like uh there and they were
Speaker 1: like this democratic family and all of that, while the
Speaker 1: reality is all of our life. When we were in school,
Speaker 1: half of the said his father, we were calling him
Speaker 1: the only words that the immortal leader. That's it. And
Speaker 1: now like all in like before the revolution, before two eleven,
Speaker 1: the country in all the media and the newspaper and everything,
Speaker 1: it's called Assad Syria. It was nothing like surprising for
Speaker 1: us that the country was run by a dictatorship. Had
Speaker 1: they known democrats you prior to the a Sad family
Speaker 1: before a lot of political parties, election for the parliament
Speaker 1: member and all of that. But after Las said, it's
Speaker 1: all become based on one party, which is a Bath party,
Speaker 1: the same party that was also in Iraq in Bath Party.
Speaker 1: And then after that just nobody became interest in politics
Speaker 1: because you know that it's just run by this family.
Speaker 1: It's rune by this party. And the only thing, the
Speaker 1: only thing that I still remember my my parents who
Speaker 1: are telling me, like, mind your own business, graduate from
Speaker 1: university and just please leave the country to like practice
Speaker 1: medicine in Germany or in the UK, and just stay
Speaker 1: there and don't talk anything about politics, like not even
Speaker 1: in in in the university, like don't dream to become
Speaker 1: like one of the like school membership. And is that
Speaker 1: the predominant mindset is when you can you get out
Speaker 1: of here. You don't stay Yeah, because you have built
Speaker 1: your dreams in such a country. You know each other
Speaker 1: part of the corrupted system to be like to get
Speaker 1: employed or you just My my parents lived in Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia for twenty eight years after immediately they graduated. They
Speaker 1: were both mathematic teachers, so they both graduated university and
Speaker 1: then traveled to Saudi Arabia teaching there for twenty eight
Speaker 1: years to afford to buy a house, and their only
Speaker 1: advice like, please, son, just we did all of that
Speaker 1: for you to get to university, finish your school and
Speaker 1: come to Saudi Arabia. Just they want you to come,
Speaker 1: but you didn't. Yeah, why Basically after the revolution, which
Speaker 1: personally I didn't expect at all that it will start
Speaker 1: in Syria, Like I didn't think that we will dare
Speaker 1: to stand against the Lessa, and when it started, we
Speaker 1: we we felt like we this is our country, belongs
Speaker 1: here and we have now a say in the future
Speaker 1: of this country, so everyone should participant. And then day
Speaker 1: by day, demonstration after demonstration, we personally and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of other Syrians felt like, as I said,
Speaker 1: we had a say here in this country and it's
Speaker 1: now our responsibility to stay here till till the end. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eleven, I felt like, I'm Syrian,
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of being Syrian, and I really want
Speaker 1: to stay and do what I want to do. And
Speaker 1: before even we knew each other, both of us has
Speaker 1: a different plan to go out, and like as really
Speaker 1: many other people, we like canceled that and just stayed
Speaker 1: to do what we believe in How did you connect?
Speaker 1: I was very passionate about what's been happening in Syria
Speaker 1: since the beginning, because I felt that we've never seen
Speaker 1: anything like it, to see people peacefully protesting in the
Speaker 1: way that they were and being met with a level
Speaker 1: of violence that was just unprecedented. I felt since the
Speaker 1: Second World War. You know, we have this event in
Speaker 1: England called Bloody Sunday, which is like a huge stain
Speaker 1: when soldiers shot ten protesters, and these guys were facing
Speaker 1: ten bloody son days every week, and they were still
Speaker 1: coming back and peacefully protesting and not resorting to violence.
Speaker 1: And so for years I've been saying, can we please
Speaker 1: make a film not about ISIS and not about all
Speaker 1: those distractions, but about people like these two amazing guys,
Speaker 1: middle class people just like us, with our education, who
Speaker 1: are asking for the things that we'll take for granted.
Speaker 1: And so for years I've been saying that. But it
Speaker 1: was only after Wad left that people realized. She came
Speaker 1: out after the tragic events you saw, came to London
Speaker 1: with these war battered hard drives that literally bore the
Speaker 1: stains and wounds of war, and said, look what should
Speaker 1: we do with this this huge pile of material. I
Speaker 1: came in to help her craft craft the films. What
Speaker 1: kind of work were you doing before the What kind
Speaker 1: of films were you making? I was making lots of
Speaker 1: films about trouble places around the world. I did. I
Speaker 1: did do one about Isis, which was about the Zidi
Speaker 1: women who had been kidnapped and an amazing, brave group
Speaker 1: of people who were trying to help them escape from
Speaker 1: ices captivity. I've been to Congo, I've been to Afghanistan, Yemen,
Speaker 1: had been to a lot of difficult places. You basically
Speaker 1: trying to get people to see that people in these
Speaker 1: places are not some alien species, they're not barbarians. They
Speaker 1: are just like us, and we have something at stake
Speaker 1: in their fate around the world. We need to change
Speaker 1: the way that we look at the world so it's
Speaker 1: not like us over here we're okay and they're in trouble,
Speaker 1: and you know it's a shame, but what the hell.
Speaker 1: We're all connected. And I think Syria more than any
Speaker 1: other conflict proves that. Now you meet with Edward after
Speaker 1: the fact, and so you're shooting, you're there, are you
Speaker 1: the camera operator? And I was the boss to myself.
Speaker 1: You were you directed yourself. You're like the orson wells
Speaker 1: of Syria. Uh. But but the your inne level and
Speaker 1: the sense you get, of course, is that at any
Speaker 1: given moment you could be dead, you personally and your
Speaker 1: children and your husband. A given moment, the bombs are
Speaker 1: gonna drop and you're gonna get hit, as as in
Speaker 1: other areas. Yeah, And this is one of the things
Speaker 1: why I kept filming and why I filmed everything, why
Speaker 1: I was like very obsessed about like filming even if
Speaker 1: we were asleep, because I felt that any moment could
Speaker 1: be the last minute. And I'm here, I have that
Speaker 1: chance now to film this and I will be killed.
Speaker 1: I will not do a film. And I wasn't really
Speaker 1: planning of what I will do in the all this material.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'm here now, I know that
Speaker 1: this is so important. I know if I've been killed,
Speaker 1: like this material will be something someone outside will use
Speaker 1: it one day. But what I need to do now
Speaker 1: that just make sure that this person who will take
Speaker 1: this this material will have a lot of like blenty
Speaker 1: choices to choose what story he was now Prior to
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven, I'm assuming the population of a
Speaker 1: lepod was one thing, and then I diminished considerable. And
Speaker 1: when you were in a lepo, did you happen to
Speaker 1: live in an area that was less likely to get
Speaker 1: bombed like there was other thing whether things they were
Speaker 1: trying to bomb, like power stations and media stations, Were
Speaker 1: they're trying to bomb certain targets and you were not
Speaker 1: in that area or were you just as vulnerable as everybody.
Speaker 1: We both from west part of Alippo, where it was
Speaker 1: under the regime control all the time. So in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, when uh it's part of a Lippo's announced
Speaker 1: that non control area which was under the Free Syrian Army,
Speaker 1: the people who carry wobon. So we moved to that
Speaker 1: area because that was like a blaze out of the
Speaker 1: gym control. It was safe that the regime can't arrest you,
Speaker 1: but it's not safe because the regime started bombing. So
Speaker 1: we were living in that place. We knew that this
Speaker 1: is now a free play area. There's many people who
Speaker 1: came to this place to live because they don't want
Speaker 1: to live under the region control anymore. And it was
Speaker 1: just a very strange life. Everything from zero there's no
Speaker 1: basic services. There's nothing, and that's why from the set
Speaker 1: up the hospital, so that place was just like a
Speaker 1: new city where there's really no one and people start
Speaker 1: like to come and start their new life in that place. Basically,
Speaker 1: I like I wish that we were vulnerable as the
Speaker 1: other people because the region was just bunishing everyone who's
Speaker 1: living there. That the main purpose was to make life
Speaker 1: as like impossible for for the people, and like this
Speaker 1: is what happened when you're living not under my control.
Speaker 1: But basically they we always know and everyone, all the
Speaker 1: civilians knew that the hospitals are the main targets of
Speaker 1: the regime, the backery, to the schools, every every place
Speaker 1: where people can be like living normally or they want
Speaker 1: like some services, they were being like attacked more than
Speaker 1: any other place. So like I had some patience and
Speaker 1: I sometimes need to admit like a patient for for
Speaker 1: five days the hospital. He was telling me, like, can
Speaker 1: you give me just the I V drugs and I
Speaker 1: will get him home, Like you know, a doctor, it's
Speaker 1: just difficult to look to stay five days in a
Speaker 1: hospital just dangerous. Sometimes like a mother will leave her
Speaker 1: children there and she said, like I trust you that
Speaker 1: you will take care of him, but I will not
Speaker 1: stay here for like six days until the child will
Speaker 1: like a discharge from from the hospital. When we moved
Speaker 1: the hospital, there was like a small military base for
Speaker 1: for the s A fighters, and we literally displaced them.
Speaker 1: They just run away. They moved because the hospital was there,
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh, it's too dangerous to leave
Speaker 1: our weapons next to you. We just move. Just to
Speaker 1: go back a little bit to describe your own backgrounds,
Speaker 1: you studied medicine where I studied medicine in faculty of
Speaker 1: Medicine in a university starting two thousand and five, graduated
Speaker 1: for Bright two thousand and twelve my last year, and
Speaker 1: usually practicing in the university hospital. So I was participated
Speaker 1: in in the demonstrations at the university, the one that
Speaker 1: you've seen in the beginning of the film. I graduated
Speaker 1: the brewery decided basically my main dream just to travel
Speaker 1: to Germany and the train as a neurosurgeon. So but
Speaker 1: I decided like, okay, I'll stay in the country until
Speaker 1: less it is down for a few maybe months, and
Speaker 1: then go to Germany. But here we are, now, what
Speaker 1: is your background in filmmaking? How did that begin? For
Speaker 1: you where and when I was from myself host like
Speaker 1: every other people around the world, you filmed yourself at home. Okay,
Speaker 1: you didn't got a film school and study film, No
Speaker 1: you didn't. I was. I did economics and then I
Speaker 1: was in the university when the revolution started. So I
Speaker 1: was the first demonstration, the second, third one. We've started,
Speaker 1: like many people in the protest, filming what was happening
Speaker 1: because we felt that this is something very important. And
Speaker 1: when did that start for you? When did you feel
Speaker 1: the urges are documenting what was happening around you? Like
Speaker 1: I think the third protest I joined, start like filming
Speaker 1: with my phone, and then after maybe like other for protests,
Speaker 1: I started like filming before the protest and with some people,
Speaker 1: asking them about what they feel. And at that time
Speaker 1: you can't show any phase of these people. So like
Speaker 1: most of these interviews was like like from here to down,
Speaker 1: which is like it's not working for anything. Did you
Speaker 1: get your first camera? The first camera I had? It
Speaker 1: was the first scene when you've seen did the camera
Speaker 1: come from? So I'm sure that there were a lot
Speaker 1: of camera stores opening a lapo. No, there was like
Speaker 1: it was really a crime to have a camera so
Speaker 1: I got it from a friend. It was sony hand
Speaker 1: handy one, very small, and I couldn't take it out
Speaker 1: from my bag. He was all the time, yeah, and
Speaker 1: into my bag all the time, and I make holes
Speaker 1: in many bags I have. So that protest was the
Speaker 1: first time I really liked there that I can't take
Speaker 1: my camera and put it out because like, this protest
Speaker 1: was like thousands of people. So I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't care whatever will happen. This is very important to
Speaker 1: be fun. So I've talked it out and start filming.
Speaker 1: And how many other people were doing that at the time.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was any camera. I'm like, because
Speaker 1: no one was like thinking beyond what was happening. It
Speaker 1: was more about news on Facebook. But I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I love filming and I really enjoyed that. So I
Speaker 1: was That's why my friend who has the camera, he
Speaker 1: didn't use it. He give it to me because you
Speaker 1: think that this is a stupid care she will film
Speaker 1: by me. This is too dangerous. I want to ask you, Edward,
Speaker 1: so how do you interact with them for the first
Speaker 1: time when you get the footage? We were match made
Speaker 1: to be honest, as I say, when wed revealed that
Speaker 1: she had this archive of over five hundred hours. Incredible
Speaker 1: revealed to our colleagues at because she'd done some stuff
Speaker 1: for Channel for News, so a couple of bits of
Speaker 1: her footage had been seen on the news and as
Speaker 1: you see in the film, you know they've got with
Speaker 1: these likes and shares on Facebook. But you arrived in
Speaker 1: London when with the footage two thousand seventeen February, one
Speaker 1: month after we left a repo. I went to London
Speaker 1: because I was working at Channel for News in two
Speaker 1: thousands sixteen and we were nominated to some like so
Speaker 1: you were getting stuff to them and like just a
Speaker 1: little bit less than eight minutes, you had a presence
Speaker 1: in the UK media and then you wind up meeting
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah. What happened, well, essentially was like a
Speaker 1: blind date. So we met each other and just started
Speaker 1: talking and wad and basically we just had a conversation
Speaker 1: about what she wanted to do with the footage and
Speaker 1: what and when she started showing it to me, we
Speaker 1: just sat for eight days with her scrubbing through this
Speaker 1: stuff and showing just some fraction of what she gathered,
Speaker 1: and I just knew that it was the most extraordinary
Speaker 1: archive of documentary footage that I was aware of, because
Speaker 1: not only did it capture all the horror and the
Speaker 1: difficult times as you've seen, but it just captured the
Speaker 1: full spectrum of human life. There, the joy, the jokes.
Speaker 1: I mean, my experience of being in conflict zones is
Speaker 1: how much humor there is. That's what people do to
Speaker 1: keep themselves going, you know, to support each other, and
Speaker 1: you often only hear about all the terrible things they've done.
Speaker 1: You don't hear enough about what the best part of
Speaker 1: human beings in those situations. And yet this amazing woman
Speaker 1: had managed to capture it on film, and you know
Speaker 1: you must know this. You know, normally when you start
Speaker 1: a project, the question is right, we've got an idea,
Speaker 1: like how good will this be? But when I sat
Speaker 1: with her and we saw this footage, I was like,
Speaker 1: this should be amazing, like and it's our responsibility to
Speaker 1: do justice to these guys stories and to what she'd
Speaker 1: managed to capture. Edward Watts alongside the four SAMA co
Speaker 1: director wad Al Kateb and her husband Dr hamsa Olcatib.
Speaker 1: The medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French
Speaker 1: acronym m SF is currently active near it Lib, the
Speaker 1: last Syrian rebel stronghold. It's where wand and harms of
Speaker 1: fled after militias drove them out of Aleppo. Dr Joanne
Speaker 1: Lou just stepped down after six years as MSF's international president.
Speaker 1: She and I talked about what it was like working
Speaker 1: in war torn Zechenia. You are bringing other people in danger.
Speaker 1: We were on the attack on a regular basis, that's
Speaker 1: one thing, but the threat of being abducted was so huge,
Speaker 1: and we knew that if something were ever to happen
Speaker 1: to the MSF staff, then we will pull out, So
Speaker 1: we were praying for not It was so nerve wracking
Speaker 1: out of fear. Yeah, and I hate that because you
Speaker 1: know this, this is so self center and compared to
Speaker 1: what all those people are going through. Come on, get
Speaker 1: a grip on yourself. The rest of my conversation with
Speaker 1: Joanne Lou is in our archives that here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When they began their filmmaking collaboration, wad Al Katibu handed
Speaker 1: her London based collaborator Edward Watts, over five hours of
Speaker 1: footage from inside Aleppo. And that wasn't all of it.
Speaker 1: I mean she was still bringing out footage on a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. I was saying, hey, what did
Speaker 1: we never use this? I was like, stop, please see
Speaker 1: the two of you like at home in bed, and
Speaker 1: she's like, arms, wake up. Actually it was really annoying
Speaker 1: because it's necessary, right, and she was spending everything, and
Speaker 1: since she's the wife, I can't say anything, so just supports,
Speaker 1: you deal, your pay and like, I always felt that
Speaker 1: whatever you think about will happen, So I wanted the
Speaker 1: attraction law and all of that. So I always was positive,
Speaker 1: like we're going to live. Nothing will happen to the hospital,
Speaker 1: everything is fine, We're going to get victory. And what
Speaker 1: was always like filming like because you want to capture
Speaker 1: everything whenever happens. And I was always like, you're just
Speaker 1: terrifying me. I feel like I'm going to die now,
Speaker 1: just please stop. I'm going to live. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: that in the film you do get that sense and
Speaker 1: you don't want to project something. When did you shoot
Speaker 1: and when did you not shoot? Were there any rules?
Speaker 1: I don't shoot when the battery is empty. This is
Speaker 1: the only get to charge. Yeah, I was filming at
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eleven and twelves like normally as
Speaker 1: any other filmmaker could films like things that you think
Speaker 1: that this is important, this is could be something important.
Speaker 1: But then like in two thousand and thirteen, I was
Speaker 1: like more filming because I get the sense of that
Speaker 1: strange life. But then like suddenly we've been in hospital
Speaker 1: for the first six months and I was like shooting
Speaker 1: us like in the mascret or eating or something, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly like two of the people who we lived with,
Speaker 1: there's just like being killed. And at that moment, I
Speaker 1: felt like every minute could be the last one, and
Speaker 1: it's so important for us to keep that. And I
Speaker 1: think even you said that one time that at that moment,
Speaker 1: I felt like, no, we need all this life to
Speaker 1: be saved, whatever the situation was, and because really I
Speaker 1: felt that I could be killed now, so this is important.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel at at any footage I've got that
Speaker 1: there's something it could be not important. You had cards,
Speaker 1: obviously digital cards that were files that filled up, and
Speaker 1: did you have problems getting more and more supplies? Was
Speaker 1: it difficult or did you have a pipeline to get
Speaker 1: that stuff because of your relationship with the British television states. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the British television relation was in two thousands sixteen, which
Speaker 1: is just the last year, but everything before was I
Speaker 1: was on and even on my relationship with them, they
Speaker 1: support me a lot that like emotionally because they don't
Speaker 1: have any chance to get anything inside. But Alippo was
Speaker 1: not a small city, and there there was a Jurkish
Speaker 1: border which is opened, so there's a trade always. You
Speaker 1: have everything. You can buy a drone if you want
Speaker 1: to buy a drone, and you shot with the drone,
Speaker 1: I could tell Yeah, I thought, I thought, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the landscape thinking, I don't think there's any buildings
Speaker 1: that were tall enough for you to stand in the
Speaker 1: window to shoot those shot you shot with the drone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you go to Turkey? No. I got it from
Speaker 1: also another friend who brought it before, but he didn't
Speaker 1: work on that. So the first like ten times I
Speaker 1: was just going with him teach me how to do this.
Speaker 1: So also the footage that you've seen, it's not very good. Actually,
Speaker 1: this is like a little bit of what I could capture,
Speaker 1: which is good, and it's seen a lot of like
Speaker 1: miss of some things like where you can did you
Speaker 1: crash the drone a few times? Yes? Yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: like act you. I was very lucky that I did
Speaker 1: that last scene and then the day after that it
Speaker 1: was like I didn't work. But also like there's a
Speaker 1: very big problems always happened. Was like the laptop and
Speaker 1: they s the card and the charger of this, and
Speaker 1: then it's very really I don't know, but small things,
Speaker 1: but it's very the power go out over time. This
Speaker 1: is another problem which you have specific time to do this,
Speaker 1: or if you are in the hospital, there's better than
Speaker 1: if you are at home. But it's all like, for example,
Speaker 1: my my Mike was damage in one place and there's
Speaker 1: one scene from that damage Mike, but I don't have
Speaker 1: any other one after this. So it was like a
Speaker 1: lot of obstrutting things, but it's done in the end.
Speaker 1: Now you're obviously you're a physician, and you stayed because
Speaker 1: you felt an obligation to your community. Exactly. That's what
Speaker 1: happened because we we had a chance to leave Semma
Speaker 1: with my parents in Turkey before going back to Apple.
Speaker 1: But the first thing that came to both of our
Speaker 1: minds that what life its child will have, Like if
Speaker 1: she just grew away from her parents, we might be
Speaker 1: killed or we might be sieged for five years and
Speaker 1: she will just grow up with her grandparents for five years.
Speaker 1: So we just like that we'll just stay together as
Speaker 1: a family. Whatever we were facing, we're facing it together.
Speaker 1: And also we felt, as you said, very responsible for
Speaker 1: to being part of this community, Like it's not when
Speaker 1: the hardest time, we say like, oh now we're taking
Speaker 1: like the safe side and it's just only you because
Speaker 1: we were part of them. And I feel like we're
Speaker 1: like traitor if we just take the safe side and
Speaker 1: just escape. But eventually you do live, event you do
Speaker 1: the well, what's the breaking point? When do you say
Speaker 1: to yourself, I wanna let me have your opinion about her,
Speaker 1: Like we didn't live really like we were forced to
Speaker 1: flee out and like a lipple. When we left, there
Speaker 1: was no one at all like the Russian and a
Speaker 1: sad regime was the Turkish government and do you and
Speaker 1: they decided that all these people who are in Alppho
Speaker 1: will be displaced out and the regime will control this.
Speaker 1: So even this there was no option for us to
Speaker 1: stay or not to stay. We were the last convoy
Speaker 1: who left Aleppo and Alipano or under the regime control.
Speaker 1: We're struggling to stay. Basically all that we we went,
Speaker 1: the decision was made for you exactly just the final
Speaker 1: days we were like seed in around two square kilometers
Speaker 1: only surrounded by the Iranian forces, covered by the Russian
Speaker 1: work crafts. And then Turkey came to the militias that
Speaker 1: controlling our area that this is your only option. Either
Speaker 1: will come inside and we don't guarantee what the Iranians
Speaker 1: will do. You either get out or whoever wants to say,
Speaker 1: can stay. So basically all the fighters, doctors, activist, journalist, teachers,
Speaker 1: with their families and children, they just went out. The
Speaker 1: woman who's cooking the rice, who were the head scarf?
Speaker 1: What is her name? She's a she's your friend. Yes.
Speaker 1: Have you still remained in touch with them at all?
Speaker 1: We stayed like every day they are in Turkey in
Speaker 1: Ghaza top and we were just like the last August
Speaker 1: we had holiday for three weeks we spent together and
Speaker 1: they've like good, doing very well, but it's still like
Speaker 1: not that get good life in Turkey. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of rasism and the kids not very happy at school,
Speaker 1: but they are like safe, doing very very good in Turkey.
Speaker 1: When you immediately leave a Luba, where do you go?
Speaker 1: We went to Atlib for two weeks is the last
Speaker 1: area out of regime control. Whereas the Times articles speaks
Speaker 1: about this hospital and we've we stayed there two weeks
Speaker 1: until we've got a permission because from the doctor to
Speaker 1: cross the Turkish border to see our families. Since that time,
Speaker 1: we've never went back. And you went to Turkey for
Speaker 1: how long we stayed? One year and a half until
Speaker 1: we moved to London? And why London? Why you got
Speaker 1: the visa British a lot, my friends a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: when you get this footage and you sit down and
Speaker 1: you work with Ward, what were some of the biggest
Speaker 1: decisions you had in terms of what stays? I mean
Speaker 1: because obviously in a film like this there's so much
Speaker 1: suffering and there's so much and you have to put
Speaker 1: the right amount that in the mix. What were some
Speaker 1: of the difficult choices out Everyone had a particular scene
Speaker 1: that mattered a lot to them on the whole team
Speaker 1: that they wish we could have included. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was one scene the hands are brought up right when
Speaker 1: we were about to lock the film, he said, why
Speaker 1: couldn't we put that in? And I was like, it's done,
Speaker 1: which is an extraordinary thing. It's like a film from
Speaker 1: a scene from a Hollywood film where you see these
Speaker 1: guys walking down the street. They're just like very small
Speaker 1: and a sniper comes shooting at them and basically hits
Speaker 1: around their feet and they all go yeah, they jump
Speaker 1: over a wall. This uh. This like video was filmed
Speaker 1: by someone who we don't know, and we met him
Speaker 1: like two years after that, and he was like telling
Speaker 1: one of our friends that he has seen he ticked
Speaker 1: from the window for people walking in that and then
Speaker 1: my friend was like, show me this and then they
Speaker 1: recognize us, so they give us this video. So even
Speaker 1: like it's really strange things and if someone told you this,
Speaker 1: you will not like trust that's true, But when you
Speaker 1: see this you can like see us both. There was
Speaker 1: so much, but I think the thing that we wanted
Speaker 1: to do was make a film that like you guys
Speaker 1: coming in off the sunny streets of like that East
Speaker 1: Hampton could go to a lepar for an hour and
Speaker 1: a half, you know, and that you could be there
Speaker 1: and you could feel what these guys went through, understand
Speaker 1: it and bear it because in the earlier versions, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the cuts that we did early on, we
Speaker 1: showed it to our friends and family and they were
Speaker 1: overwhelmed because it went too dark. And so one of
Speaker 1: our big things is getting the movement between the light
Speaker 1: and the dark, when you know, when you've been hammered,
Speaker 1: you had a moment where you could just draw breath,
Speaker 1: where we just had an uncut shot of Samma just
Speaker 1: being amazing, where you could just settle down and think, right,
Speaker 1: there is still good in life in the world. We've
Speaker 1: really tried to do find a way to give the
Speaker 1: right reflection of the true experience because like after everything
Speaker 1: we went to though, we're still like very strong and
Speaker 1: very we still like stand and keep fighting for the
Speaker 1: for this as we were there, and just like the
Speaker 1: true experience of this is not like people who have
Speaker 1: been like attacking in these places and then in the
Speaker 1: end they are really lost or really not feeling good.
Speaker 1: So in in that new structure which we did the
Speaker 1: last one you've seen now, it's more about like going
Speaker 1: between the dark and light and giving the people the
Speaker 1: understanding like why we stayed and just how much hope
Speaker 1: there was. I mean, that was the thing, you know,
Speaker 1: after all these guys have been through. When I met
Speaker 1: them for the first time and got to know them,
Speaker 1: you just felt how much hope they had, how much
Speaker 1: they look back on This experience actually is an important
Speaker 1: one and a positive one in their lives, despite the
Speaker 1: way it ended. And that was so important to convey
Speaker 1: because there is always hope. Frankly speaking, I've lost top
Speaker 1: because basically we've tried everything, like I've I've done a
Speaker 1: petition that was signed by eight hundred thousand people in
Speaker 1: different countries demanding the world leaders too to interfere. I've
Speaker 1: done so many, like I can't countless interviews with media
Speaker 1: we've known with this film. Now, I think it's in
Speaker 1: our hand just to save the narrative for the future,
Speaker 1: hoping that one day accountability will happen. And I said,
Speaker 1: now has it's controlling eighty percent of Syria and that's it.
Speaker 1: So the only thing is just to keep the awareness,
Speaker 1: keep talking about it. There's countless war crimes that has happened,
Speaker 1: there are countless witnesses, and one day accountability should happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: Your Syrian heritage is obviously important to you, how do
Speaker 1: you keep it a life for your daughters now that
Speaker 1: you're living in London. Like, she knows very well where
Speaker 1: she is from, and this is the first thing. I
Speaker 1: was like, where are you from? And she said, like
Speaker 1: Syria and Alippo. I've showed her some of the wedding
Speaker 1: scene and her relationship with Nya for example, which is
Speaker 1: Nya the little daughter which she is in the film too.
Speaker 1: We've tried any a lot now to keep speaking Arabic
Speaker 1: atomb so they can still like feel the atmosphere. She
Speaker 1: can see a lot of pictures on the wall and
Speaker 1: a lot of things related to Syria and our home home.
Speaker 1: The main thing that's only for Cem, but all the
Speaker 1: we hope but this film will do for all the
Speaker 1: next generation, to save the narratives, save the history of
Speaker 1: what what really happened in Syria, because still the moment,
Speaker 1: most of the news, most of the reports are about ices.
Speaker 1: Most of the U. N and w h O statements
Speaker 1: was all in passive voice, that that hospitals were bombed,
Speaker 1: words like if war in Syria, those killing each other
Speaker 1: and all of that. So we hoped from this film
Speaker 1: for Cement for everyone, just to save for the next
Speaker 1: generation that what happened Isa was a revolution, was peaceful
Speaker 1: people trying to claim their rights and they were faced
Speaker 1: with the hardest attacks by all the evil triangle in
Speaker 1: the world, like Russian and the regime, the Iranians. And
Speaker 1: that's what we hope when she grew up, she will
Speaker 1: know exactly where she's coming from. Is there another film
Speaker 1: about the life you've made now? No? No, your husband
Speaker 1: just both stand for us. Don't point out camera me. No,
Speaker 1: really we what we're trying to do more now with
Speaker 1: the rest of the footage that I have. It's more
Speaker 1: about trying to build a basic um like place for
Speaker 1: them to be used in some low suit for court
Speaker 1: against the regime and Russians. Co director Edward watts hams
Speaker 1: alcateb what sorry. Just before everybody goes, people need to
Speaker 1: get motivated to do something, and we're trying to use
Speaker 1: the incredible reaction to help make a difference in Syria.
Speaker 1: We're launching a campaign called Action for Samma. Are simple
Speaker 1: message that we're beginning with is stop bombing hospitals. That's
Speaker 1: our tagline. We could use your help, so please follow
Speaker 1: Action for Samma. Help us in whatever way you can
Speaker 1: thank you very much for me. Thank you. That was
Speaker 1: Edward Watts, what alcatib and Dr Hams a rctibe. The
Speaker 1: website of their organization is action for Samma dot org.
Speaker 1: Their movie is available streaming on PBS. I'm Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and this is Here's the thing. Four four