Film Threat

For Sama will be the single most heart-wrenchingly honest film you have ever seen. No amount of acting, elite accolades or story manipulation will ever compare to the genuine truth captured by a woman with a camera in Syria. It is truly an honor and a privilege to see this film.

San Francisco Chronicle by G. Allen Johnson

What a talent Waad is. For Sama is a film made with the instincts of a journalist, the passion of a revolutionary and the beating heart of a mother.

Variety by Guy Lodge

Simple in concept and shattering in execution, blending hard-headed reportage with unguarded personal testimony, it’s you-are-there cinema of the most literal order.

RogerEbert.com by Tomris Laffly

A devastating scrapbook and a confessional journal of sorts. It’s also a personal cinematic endeavor as opposed to a historical crash course in the vein of “Cries From Syria,” another superb documentary on the subject, but one with different ambitions.

CineVue

For Sama is a clarion call to the ignorant West and a testament to the sustaining power of unconditional love in the face of absolute horror. It is terrible to witness and absolutely essential viewing for all.

The Guardian by Mike McCahill

Sifting six years’ worth of rubble, al-Kateab turns up beauty and one earthly miracle to set alongside the horrors, but horrors there are.

CineVue by Christopher Machell

From five years-worth of footage, al-Kateab constructs a narrative of astonishing humanity, clarity and urgency, capturing a global outrage from the perspective of the human and individual.

CineVue by Rhys Handley

For Sama is a clarion call to the ignorant West and a testament to the sustaining power of unconditional love in the face of absolute horror. It is terrible to witness and absolutely essential viewing for all.

Film Threat by Chuck Foster

For Sama will be the single most heart-wrenchingly honest film you have ever seen. No amount of acting, elite accolades or story manipulation will ever compare to the genuine truth captured by a woman with a camera in Syria. It is truly an honor and a privilege to see this film.

The Film Stage by John Fink

The latest in a series of work about the cost of the refugee crisis and human migration, For Sama is a harrowing experience and certainly one of the most essential films of the year.

The New York Times by Teo Bugbee

The activists of this film, including al-Kateab herself, don’t speak in the language of philosophers or politicians. Their quotidian aspirations — to build a garden, to send their children safely to school — demonstrate the brutality of the government’s response, but they also invite viewers to picture themselves in the shoes of these modest political dissidents.

Wall Street Journal by Dorothy Rabinowitz

For all the devastation, the certain knowledge on the part of the resisters that they couldn’t hold out forever, they display a striking buoyancy, which the film captures in moving detail.

TheWrap by Steve Pond

The footage, as personal as it is horrific, is often hard to watch.

Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney

Following the siege month by month through 2016, the film has a gripping narrative drive, with many sequences that work to variously harrowing and cathartic effect.

The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer

Revisiting some of the events that marked Aleppo’s final year under siege, as well as those that led up to them, the film offers up a rare firsthand account of war from a strictly female perspective, focusing on how conflict affects families, and, especially, the hundreds of innocent victims that are children.