Birds of War

BIRDS OF WAR follows London-based Lebanese journalist, Janay, and Syrian activist Habak over 13 years, using personal archives to tell a love story across war, revolutions and exile.

Young BBC reporter Janay Boulos first contacts Syrian cameraman Abd Alkader Habak
“Habak” for footage during the final months of the four-year battle for Aleppo in 2016, one of the bloodiest and most decisive turning points in Syria’s brutal civil war.

Their professional relationship deepens as Janay discovers more about the extraordinary young man documenting the violence for her reports. Through texts, video exchanges, voice messages, and shared moments from afar, the bond between them strengthens, while at the same time Habak’s world becomes increasingly perilous amid chemical attacks and continuous bombardment.

When an act of compassion puts Habak in danger and he is forced to flee Syria, he and Janay’s relationship enters a new phase — for the first time, they meet in person, in Turkey. Distance, war, cultural differences and familial judgments temporarily fade as the two wrap themselves in a cocoon of safety, away from the terror back home.

Still, they are never far from the question that would soon enough come to haunt them: Would it be possible for two people from such disparate worlds to build a life together?