Waad al-Kateab

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Waad al-Kateab

Waad al-Kateab (born 1991 ) is the pseudonym of a Syrian documentary filmmaker and activist. Her debut film Für Sama received numerous awards and was nominated for an Oscar in 2020 .

Life

Waad al-Kateab was studying Marketing at Aleppo University in 2011 when the Arab Spring hit Syria. She joined the demonstrations against Assad and the ruling Ba'ath Party and began to document them initially with her smartphone . She continued this during the Syrian Civil War and the siege of Aleppo by government troops. She later documented with a video camera. During this time she met her future husband, Hamza, a doctor at the Aleppo hospital. They married and had a daughter, Sama. In December 2016, they were evacuated to Turkey , where their second daughter was born. She sent her material to the UK Channel 4 News . The recordings from the besieged city were released as a series under the title Inside Aleppo and were honored with an International Emmy Award in 2017  . It is the first Emmy ever to be awarded to a Syrian filmmaker.

Thanks to her contacts with the British broadcaster, she was able to fly to Great Britain in 2017 after a year in a Turkish camp and apply for asylum at Heathrow Airport . She now lives in London and works for Channel 4. From the material she brought with her, she and Edward Watts put together the documentary For Sama .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Kate Kellaway, 'My daughter was raised during the siege of Aleppo. I had to make a film for her ' , The Guardian, August 25, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b c Eleanor Stanford, After 'For Sama,' a Syrian Family Finds Refuge in London , The New York Times, November 20, 2019.
  3. ↑ Channel 4 News wins International Emmy for News , Channel 4, October 6, 2017.
  4. ^ For Sama maker Waad al-Kateab on why she chose to remain fighting in Syria , Financial Times, September 6, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Kateab, Waad al-
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH 1991