Birds of War tells the love story between Lebanese journalist Janay Boulos and Syrian cameraman and activist Abd Alkader Habak over 13 years of war, revolution and exile.
Ahead of the film’s release, we caught up with co-director Janay Boulos to discuss what it was like to open up her life with her partner Habak to the world, and how they struck a balance between the personal and the political.
How did you approach directing and producing Birds of War as a couple?
Working as a couple has been challenging since we started Habak Films together, and making Birds of War added an extra layer of difficulty, since this is our personal archive, our own memories and a large period of our lives that we were turning into a narrative. We didn’t just have heated discussions about the film itself, we also struggled with our memories of the events we’d lived through, and found it hard to let go of certain moments, because everything felt important to include.
In practice, this meant we often had to swap roles depending on who was closer to a particular memory. If one of us became too emotional or too attached to a scene to see it clearly, the other would step in as advisor and consultant, pushing for what the film needed rather than what felt important to protect. We could sense when the other was triggered or stuck, and that gave us permission to take over for a while.
It takes a lot of love to come through making something this personal and still want to make more films together. We were able to argue and still understand each other, and that’s ultimately what let us tell our stories in a way that felt true to our lived experience while also serving the film.
A lot of context around the wider events in Syria or Lebanon, even when it felt important, was left out, because it didn’t serve the love story. The love story let us choose what was bringing us closer and what was pulling us apart, rather than trying to be event-oriented and it became about how our relationship was going, not a record of everything that happened around us.
How did you try to strike the balance between your love story and the more hard-hitting moments amidst conflict in Syria and Lebanon?
Habak has a vast archive, and it also documents potential war crimes, so we made a deliberate decision early on not to include bloody or extreme footage of war, there’s barely a shot in the film that shows blood. This was something we approached very deliberately: we worked with Rebecca Day at Film in Mind, using guidance to build a trauma-informed editing process. Habak hadn’t been able to look at his own hard drive since arriving in London and this process allowed him to finally sit down and review it, colour-coding the material as Red, Orange or Green. We excluded the Red footage entirely, and our editor blurred certain material to protect himself and our translator from exposure to the most graphic images. In some cases, we only sent audio clips to the translator rather than visuals. It narrowed things down, but there was still a huge amount to work through.
The Lebanon material I had filmed was different , it was political, and very focused on my family, so the question there was less about graphic content and more about relevance. The more we tried to explain the political reality of Lebanon, the further it pulled us from the love story and the more complex the film became. So the balance came down to the same principle throughout: anything, graphic or political, that pulled focus away from the relationship at the centre of the film was left out, with Syria and Lebanon serving as the backdrop rather than the subject.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
We hope audiences leave with a sense that borders may define nations, but they don’t have to define people. At its heart, this is a film about resisting the narratives imposed on us by states, history and war, and choosing connection in spite of them. We want people to see the real possibilities that open up when ordinary individuals on opposite sides of one of today’s most divisive conflicts choose to communicate directly with each other and to understand rather than fear, to connect rather than retreat.
In a moment when the world feels increasingly divided, when borders harden and people are quicker to label each other than to listen, we wanted to offer a different vision, one where compassion can disrupt the logic of conflict. Beyond our own story, we hope it points to something bigger: the role independent journalism can play in building empathy and understanding, as a genuine antidote to the hate so often amplified by mainstream news, especially personal, honest storytelling from lived experience that can be a tool for healing, accountability and change.
Birds of War is showing from Friday 3 July at Bertha DocHouse.