Filmhouse/New Kalamata Cinema Club-For Little Sama

It's hard to put into words "For Little Sama", a poignant personal video diary chronicling the devastation of war in Syria through the eyes of a young woman who wants to preserve documents for her newborn daughter, Sama.

Wade's directorial debut, which bridges the gap with the previous section of the Women Makers Club, could not be more original, accurate and courageous while symbolising a "love letter" from a mother to her daughter. The film follows Wade's life over five years in Aleppo as she falls in love, marries and gives birth to her daughter, Sama, while the world literally falls apart around her. Wade captures with her camera loss, joy, sacrifice, the relativity of things and the fatal dilemma: to stay or to go?

There are images in the film that we will carry with us forever, part of a filmic document, which serves one and only goal: a better tomorrow for children. As critic Varvara Kontoni describes it, "This Oscar nominee for best documentary is a raw tribute to a planet that continues to tear each other apart, as well as to the greatest victims of all wars: children. A record of human existence at its worst but also its best. The fear of air raids on the one hand and the songs in the ruins on the other. Death and life, the scary present and the hopeful future. Because, in the end, it's all about them. And for little Sama."

The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary and has collected more than 45 awards at International Festivals worldwide.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 04
FOR SAMA
War, Documentary | 15+ | 2019 | Syr | 100'
directed by: Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts
playing: Waad Al-Kateab, Sama Al-Khateab, Hamza Al-Khateab
21:00 | Kalamata Labour Centre| General admission is 5 euros, admission is 3 euros for the unemployed and students, and free for those under 18