Activist, Mother, Filmmaker: Competing Transgressions in the Syrian War Documentary

Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which the Syrian War documentary has depicted and reflected upon the figure of the activist mother, and the competing concepts of personal and political transgression that cluster around her as she occupies fraught zones of conflict and its witnessing, mortal danger and forced migration. Through two case study films, A Syrian Love Story (Sean McAllister, UK, 2015), a British filmmaker’s account of the family of political prisoner Raghda Hasan as they negotiate living under Bashar al-Assad’s regime and eventually flee it; and For Sama (Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, UK/Syria, 2019), a first person account of a Syrian activist journalist, Waad, who gives birth to and raises her child during the siege of Aleppo, the chapter explores the ethical and representational questions raised in this centring of the activist mother and her potential status as a transgressor of political and social norms. It also situates these activist mother films in the wider array of anti-regime Syrian War documentaries, where the plight of parents and children are foregrounded as part of the call to action to North American and European audiences.