Films Across Borders: For Sama
Event Information
About this event
Join us on Tuesday, Oct 6 at 12 pm ET for a live virtual panel discussion about For Sama. Professor Rebecca Hamilton from American University's Washington College of Law will moderate the discussion and be joined by journalist Omar al-Muqdad and Sana Mustafa, associate director of partnership and engagement at Asylum Access.
View the film in advance of the conversation at your convenience here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/for-sama/
Reservations for live virtual panel discussion required. Information about joining the live event will be sent to registrants a few days before the event.
For Sama is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab's life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice - whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter's life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much. The film is the first feature documentary by Emmy award-winning filmmakers Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts. Awards include 2020 BAFTA for Best Documentary, 2020 Peabody Award and 2019 European Film Academy Documentary Award.
Meet the Panelists:
Rebecca Hamilton is an associate professor of law at American University Washington College of Law, where her research and teaching focus on national security law, international law, and criminal law. Her scholarship draws on her experience in the prosecution of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, as well as her work in conflict zones as a foreign correspondent. She is the author of “Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide” (Palgrave Macmillan), which analyzes citizen activism and the effort to stop mass atrocities. Professor Hamilton previously served as a lawyer in the prosecutorial division of the International Criminal Court, working on cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda, and Sudan. She has also worked in the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and has been the Deputy Director of the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU School of Law. Prior to entering academia, Professor Hamilton worked as a journalist for the Washington Post and Reuters. A Pulitzer Center grantee and former fellow at New America and at Open Society Foundations, she has also written for Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, International Herald Tribune, and The New Republic.
Omar al-Muqdad is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and former Syrian refugee who writes a regular blog for the Center for Migration Studies titled, “Dispatches from the Global Crisis in Refugee Protection.” This series covers the Syrian Civil War, the experiences of Syria’s immense and far-flung refugee population, the global crisis in refugee protection, religious persecution, and US refugee and immigration policies. Mr. al-Muqdad published a series of articles covering refugees’ boat trips to Europe for The National newspaper, the Middle East’s leading English-language news service. His work has been featured by the BBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, and in many other international media outlets.
Sana Mustafa is the associate director of partnership and engagement at Asylum Access, an international organization works on challenging legal barriers that keep refugees from living safely, moving freely, working and attending school. Prior to that, Mustafa managed her own consulting business where she consulted with different institutions such as Oxfam International, Open Society Foundation, United Nations, WeWork, Tent Partnership for Refugees, and others on designing engagement projects related to refugees, refugees’ inclusion, and their political and humanitarian situation through design thinking approach.
Mustafa is an active public speaker and has spoken at the United Nations headquarters in New York, delivered a TED talk, spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, Carnegie Endowment, the White House, Harvard Law School, Stanford, and at numerous other respected venues. Mustafa is a founding member of The Network For Refugee Voices, a refugees led coalition working to increase refugees engagement with the international community to pursue inclusive, sustainable, and effective refugee and immigration policy. Mustafa is also a board member of Syria’s first Syrian Women’s Political Movement, whose aim is to unite women from across professional fields and ethnic lines to ensure vision for women’s inclusion in a future Syria. Mustafa finished her second undergraduate degree in Political Science as a full scholarship recipient from Bard College in NY. Mustafa has a degree in Business Administration from Damascus, Syria.
More Info about overall film series: FilmsAcrossBorders.org.
CO-PRESENTED BY:
AU School of International Service
AU Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
