The article is from the WeChat public account: Guyu Project-Tencent News (ID: guyuproject) , author: Chensi Yi, from FIG title: “to Sama”
Syria under the lens of female director Vaid is full of danger and death. At the same time, it is more human toughness and kindness.
Aleppo, Syria. In a small dark room, the young mother has messy hair and is comforting the crying baby girl. All windows in the room are tightly wrapped to prevent bombs from falling. The sound of air strikes was near and far, shaking the audience’s hearts. Mom’s voice-over sounded at this moment: “Sama, I know you have a sense of what happened. You will never cry again like a normal child, and my heart is broken when I think of it.” / p>
New life and death with their own stories
This is a scene from Cannes’ best documentary “For Sama” in 2019, which can well summarize the core of the entire film-birth and death, war and daily life. This extreme contrast constitutes the film’s strongest Dramatic tension. The British “Guardian” reporter said: This film will “break your heart and leave scars on your soul.”
The storyteller and female director Wayid Al Gitabo (Waad Al-Kateab) was originally a marketing professional College students. The Syrian revolution broke out in 2011. Like other young people, she devoted herself to the revolution, hoping to fight for the future of the country, but did not want to be followed by 8 years of war and civil strife.
Wayd lives in the center of the storm. She slowly taught herself to be a video reporter from an amateur photographer, and she and the field doctor Hazma (Hazma) In love, the two stayed in Aleppo and, while helping the injured civilians, recorded everything in front of them. Her camera witnessed the fall of Aleppo in the wrestling of different political forces, civilians struggling every day between life and death, and daily life that is beyond ordinary in the flames of war. Most importantly, God sent Wyid an unexpected gift during the war—her daughter, Sama. The appearance of Sama makes the choice of leaving and staying more urgent and heavy.
Will the husband and wife keep their homeland for their ideals? Or did she leave for the safety of her daughter?
The film starts in second person, and the whole film can be seen as a letter written by Wyid to his daughter, Sama. She tells her daughter how the revolution began, how she and Sama’s father fell in love, how to host a wedding in the battlefield, and set up their first home. She also presented her daughter with the passing away of her comrades-in-arms and the departure of her companions. Vayde showed the most extreme but also the simplest joys and sorrows of life in this battlefield love letter to her daughter, hoping that when she grows up, she will know something about where she was born.
Wayd, Hazima and Sama’s family of three
The kindness and tenacity of people in war
There are many documentaries about war, but few are private images plus female perspectives. Aleppo under Wyed’s lens is full of danger and death. At the same time, it is more human toughness and kindness.
For example, a mother was crying to collect the corpse of her young son. She cried until she almost fainted. Someone offered to help her hold the child home. She resolutely refused to let her. She said it was my son. Let me hug him last .
For example, supplies are scarce, and there are almost no vegetables and fruits in the city. Wyed’s girlfriend especially wants to eat persimmons, but can only laugh at herself as whimsical. One day, her husband didn’t know where to get a persimmon. When she got her girlfriend, her happy smile seemed to infect people all over the world.
BattleAfter the first snow and new sprouts from the trees at home, when each day may be the last day of life, people ’s moods and sorrows are magnified, and small things that are not worth mentioning become precious.
There is a very long play in which the medical staff delivers a pregnant woman. When a baby is born, it’s dead gray, it doesn’t cry, it’s silent. But the camera has not been switched slowly, watching the medical staff continue to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the audience’s heart is about to be crushed, and I really want to stay away from this cruel scene. But just as the audience’s patience was approaching the limit, the child cried mysteriously. The miracle of life lights up the gloomy battlefield.
Although the story of “For Sama” takes place in Syria, which has a completely different cultural and social context than China, viewers living in peaceful times must also be able to snuggle up with each other in the film, or the residents ’sincere feelings about their homeland Love resonates.
Wayd ’s lens is like a bird in Ai Qing ’s poem,
“Singing with a hoarse throat:
This land hit by the storm,
This river of anger is always raging,
The endless wind of anger blowing,
And the incredibly gentle dawn from the forest … “
“don’t want to leave”
When the last inhabitants, including the Wyed family, fled Aleppo, a mother hugged her child and looked at her hometown in tears. Aleppo really fell. “
In the beginning, I never thought I would be the protagonist
Vaid left with hundreds of hours of materialAleppo, heading to Britain as a refugee. At first she didn’t expect to make all this a documentary until she got in touch with the British Channel 4 television station and contacted another co-director, British journalist Edward Watt. (Edward Watts) , the two began collating materials together and spent two years working together to complete this documentary. Gu Yu interviewed director Waide to hear her talk about her life experience and the creative process of the film.
Gu Yu: The narration of the whole film is written in the second person with the daughter as the second person. The emotional impact is very strong. Is this an idea that you had when shooting?
Vaid: It was an idea that was only made in the later editing, but everything seems to be doomed. At that time, I was still shooting another film, specifically about women in war, especially pregnant women and new mothers. The core question is whether women in the field should have children and whether they should bring their children to this world. For this, I followed three female characters. When I was pregnant myself, I naturally shot myself in.
But I never thought I would be the hero. The director always thinks that the stories of others are more important. What is there to say about his own story? But the film slowly changed with the development of editing.
In the beginning, the structure of this film was arranged in chronological order. We have several years of material. At the time of the basic cut, we started to discuss how to make the story more touching, thinking about any clues that can run through the film. I just remembered the scene where Samah was lying in bed. I thought why not let the film start around Samah?
Sama on the ruins of the battlefield Picture | New Statesman America
When I came up with this idea, the producers were a bit scared, and it was very risky to push the edits back at that later stage. But I called to tellWhen my husband was crying on the phone, he hadn’t watched the movie yet, but just cried after hearing the idea.
He is a straight steel man. I know that if he is also touched, the audience can feel this emotion. We tried cutting for 20 minutes, and the producer never saw it again after seeing it. For me, although this idea came to my mind later, when life and death are not far away, my subconscious mind is ultimately my daughter.
“Photography gives me the meaning of living here”
Gu Yu: Has the birth of Sama changed your life and shooting?
Wayed: When people are in battle, their anger and sorrow are stronger than usual. When I became a mother, all my feelings were magnified again. Happiness, pain, survival, death, everything hit my heart with even greater power. Every decision I made became heavier and more emotional. I have more things to protect, and I think more about life and death. It can be said that Sama has made my world more complicated, but in other words, it has made it simpler.
Gu Yu: How do you balance the roles of mother and photographer? Sometimes I see you holding the camera in one hand and holding Sama in the other.
Wade: I have many different identities. I am a mother, wife, journalist, and social activist. The reason why I can balance so many roles is because there are many people who support me. When shooting, there will always be a lot of friends asking me to take care of Sama.
There are many times when I want to stop filming and just want to stay quietly with Sama. Without her husband’s support, I would not be able to carry on. Sometimes, he only had 4 hours of sleep after the operation, but he would still say that he would take care of Sama and let me take a break, even if it was just walking in the garden, letting go, or meeting friends. But it also puts me under even greater pressure, and he will always remind me how important it is to shoot.
I once filmed for a local TV station because I accidentally lost the material. I have no experience, did n’t sign a contract with them, and they didn’t come to help me. I was frustrated and angry and wanted to smash the camera, but my husband took the camera and scolded me that if there were any difficulties, do n’t stop shooting, because we want to use the camera to record the real Aleppo, we live Aleppo cannot let various political discourses shape and tamper with the truth. As I said in the film: “I have to shoot all the time, and the shooting gives me the meaning of living here.”
Gu Yu: There are many direct gazes on death in the film. But now some people worry that there are too many stimulating pictures from Syria in the media, such as the bodies of refugee children on the beach. Some people worry that the audience will feel numb when they see too much, and they will lose their sympathy for Syrians. How did you consider these issues during the production of the film?
Wayd: Because I am one of them, I can deal with these extreme scenes more freely when capturing, to capture those emotions. Actually, I didn’t think that much. I took almost everything. I thought maybe I wouldn’t live tomorrow, so I wanted to take everything.
But we did discuss this issue during the editing process. I feel we have a responsibility to show the audience the real situation. We also want to make the audience feel at the center of the war, so we should put this picture even more.
Picture of Aleppo in the flames of war | Syria
We also know that for viewers, such a picture will be difficult to see, so we will have to think of ways, such as humor, human kindness and beauty. Therefore, the audience will feel that this film is really not easy to watch, but it should be watched.
I think it is very irresponsible to worry about everyone being numb and not showing the truth. If such a thing happens in this world, we have a responsibility to look directly at it.
Gu Yu: The film does have a lot of humorous details, which is very precious and unexpected for a war film.
Wayd: Yes, humor exists not only in movies, but also in our lives. This movie is just an extension of our lives. In such an environment, we need humor more to fight fear. Apart from humor, and friends, we cannot survive without them. Humor and friends will give you unexpected power.
This movie belongs to Battlefield Mom
Gu Yu: This is a very personal film, but you also work with a male director who is not from Syria. What is the experience of two people with different perspectives working together? What changes did Edward’s addition bring to the film?
Wayd: I did n’t dare to think about it in the earliest time. How can an outsider direct this film with me, but Edward respects and tolerates me very much and gives me enough space and the final decision . During the editing, we had a very difficult two years, and we also had a lot of happy and sincere discussions.
The whole video is my perspective, my story. Edward supports me in telling my story. But he also helped me to understand my story to audiences of different cultures. He will ask questions that are unique to foreign audiences, and will consider situations that foreign audiences may not understand. I think the film has reached a balance of different perspectives.
Picture | CNN
Many times when we make a film, we will be asked who is the audience of this film, local audience or western audience? But at least after watching this movie, the response from the Syrian audience and the Western audience is very close. I don’t think this is one of the two things that must be taken.
Gu Yu: Does this film bring some social change? What feedback does the local audience have?
Wayd: We are still working hard to promote more social change. For the locals, first of all, they feel that their story has been heard by more people. This is the story of every Syrian. After a Syrian audience watched the movie, I was told that the movie showed the perseverance of the Syrian people, for which he was proud. This film also records an important history.
The situation in Syria is very complicated. One million people can shoot one hundredThousands of different movies, but at least I recorded the war experience from the perspective of women, and gave women, especially battlefield mothers, their own voice.
Another effect is that we want to prevent similar things from happening. The city of Idlib in northwestern Syria is experiencing the same wars as Aleppo. We hope that all parties stop all bombings of the hospital, and we hope to bring the crisis in Syria back to the media and political circles. We will be screening at the United Nations and other government agencies to make this movie more accessible to more people.
Figure | The Telegraph
Gu Yu: What kind of thinking and change do you want this film to bring to audiences outside Syria?
Wayd: We are making a website, which will have six channels for ordinary audiences to interact with the video, whether it is sharing related content, signing a joint letter or donating and supporting, The world’s audience can stand with the Syrian people, especially Syria’s war doctors.
The article is from WeChat public account: Guyu Project-Tencent News (ID: guyuproject) , author: Chen Siyi