Year: 2026
Directors: Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak
Producers: Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak, Sonja Henrici
Production Companies: Sonja Henrici Creates
Screen Scotland support: The film accessed £95,000 through Screen Scotland’s Film Development and Production Fund
Synopsis
In 2016, BBC reporter Janay contacts Syrian cameraman Habak for footage from besieged Aleppo. Their professional relationship becomes something deeper as Janay discovers the extraordinary young man documenting Syria’s brutal war. Through texts and voice messages, their connection intensifies, even as Habak’s world grows increasingly dangerous through chemical attacks and bombings.
When Habak is forced to flee Syria in 2017, the two get married. But their union reveals new complications due to their opposing political and religious backgrounds. In London, they face a different challenge: how can we be together when we are so different?
As Middle East politics shift dramatically with the 2019 revolution and the 2024 war in Lebanon, as well as the fall of the Assad regime, both are transformed, showing how love endures not by resolving differences, but by learning to live within them.
More information
Premiere: Birds of War will have its World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2026 in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.
Image credits: Stills courtesy of Sonja Henrici