War child, 4, who is Little Miss Inspiration
AS BEFITS an Oscar nominee, offers of gowns for the ceremony have been flooding in.
But one young star is embracing the latest celebrity trend for sustainable fashion and planning to re-wear something from her existing wardrobe, a floaty white number with a gold waistband and marabou trim. Unless, that is, she changes her mind.
Not that she’s a Hollywood diva. Sama Al-Kateab is just four years old — thought to be the youngest person ever to attend the ceremony — and fickleness is expected when it comes to preschoolers and fashion.
‘The plan is for her to wear the white dress but we have other options,’ says her mother Waad, 28. ‘We’ll just have to see what she wants to do on the day.’
At the Baftas last weekend — in a blue frock and her favourite pink trainers — Sama stole everyone’s hearts. On the red carpet, the Peppa Pig fan who starts school in September chatted to interviewers and trotted around at a press conference as unselfconscious as if she’d been in her back garden.
‘I think it’s because she’s been around cameras all her life,’ says Waad, a filmmaker whose very personal account of life amid the devastation of Aleppo in Syria won the Bafta for best documentary.
For five years, Waad documented her life, which included the usual stages of falling in love, getting married and having her first child juxtaposed with surviving almost unimaginable conditions as a result of the Assad regime’s bombings and gas attacks. The film shows in heart-rending detail the daily suffering of Syrian life.
One of the most poignant scenes features a mother who, on finding her young son’s lifeless body, urges: ‘It’s Mummy, I’ve got your milk, wake up!’ When she spots Waad filming her, instead of screaming at her to leave, she shouts: ‘Film this!’ Yet the film is not without its moments of elation. In another scene, a baby is born by emergency C-section to his mother who has been brought in unconscious. The baby initially fails to respond to resuscitation.
Eventually, when he is held upside down and slapped, he gives his first cry, to the joy of the medical team.
You hear Sama’s first cries too, from outside the room where Waad is giving birth, her friends filming as they wait for news. Sadly, the doctor who delivers her is killed four months later in an airstrike on the hospital.
In December 2016, as the city fell to the government, the family fled. For Waad, her doctor husband Hamza, 33, who set up a hospital in besieged Aleppo, Sama and her sister Taima, two, London is now home.
The powerful film is called For Sama, in honour of the girl at the heart of it and is nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars.
Is Sama nervous about tomorrow night’s ceremony? ‘No, she’s so cool, almost too cool,’ says Waad.
‘Being close to home in London, the Baftas were a test for the Oscars to see if she could handle the situation.
‘We were seated close to a door and one of my friends was waiting behind it, in case Sama wanted to get out. The idea was that she would stay for ten minutes and then go outside with my friend until our award was called. But she refused to go. She wanted to stay and watch it with us. She enjoyed it so much.
‘We were nominated for four awards and I thought if we won the first, then she would come on stage with us then go directly
‘She met William and didn’t believe he was a prince’
home. But the award for best documentary wasn’t until second to last, and so she didn’t get to bed until 11pm — way past her bedtime of 8.30pm.
‘She was playing with Laura Dern backstage and she met Prince William and Kate. I was trying to tell her, “Look Sama! This is a prince” but she kept insisting, “No, it’s not.” She expected they would wear a big crown.’
While there have been young Oscar attendees in the past — Shirley Temple was honoured at six and Anna Paquin for The Piano aged 11 — none have been as young as four.
As any parent knows, food is a vital weapon in the battle with a fractious child.
‘I will have a bag of snacks with me,’ explains Waad. ‘Everything you could imagine, to keep her focused. She doesn’t like chocolate so much but perhaps some toast with jam or peanut butter, and she likes biscuits, popcorn and loves apples, grapes and strawberries.’
For Waad, the most important part of Oscars night is being able to highlight the plight of those still in Syria.
The conflict started in 2011, the year Waad started filming. It has killed an estimated 500,000, with more than five million fleeing the country. Waad’s home city of Aleppo has been under government control since the end of 2016.
‘If we win, then for me the most important thing is the 60 seconds you have on stage, when you can speak to the millions of people watching and tell them that there are 3.5 million Syrian civilians still under the regime.’
The plaudits her film has received have left Waad with mixed emotions. It’s impossible to imagine two worlds further apart than coping with life in a city under attack and the glamour of Hollywood.
‘Even a year ago, the idea of being at the Oscars was something that was not on this planet,’ she says.
‘It’s an amazing moment for us but there are so many children in the street in Syria trying to escape death. Sama survived but there are perhaps one million children trapped in Idlib now [ the last rebel stronghold against Assad].’
The film may be dedicated to one special little girl — who may yet have a starring role tomorrow — but it’s all the other little girls and their families that Waad wants us to remember.
FOR SAMA is available on channel4.com.