Presented as a love letter to her daughter, this is the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life during five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria. With a camera in her hand, she captures when she falls in love, gets married, and gives birth to Sama—all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her.

Romance, motherhood, and impossible choices are universal themes, but they are rarely explored in the first person, and amidst one of the most destructive conflicts of our time: the Syrian war and the siege of Aleppo. For Sama is a devastatingly intimate documentary, bursting with courage and love.