Co-directors Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak chronicle the evolution of their relationship from professional collaboration to romantic partnership in Birds of War. We posed our Qs à la mode to Janay and Habak, and here’s what they shared!
If we had to describe our film using only three adjectives, they would be: Haunting, intimate, and defiant.
We wanted to make this film because: Today, we need more understanding, more compassion, and to talk to one another more than ever before. In the end, we are human.
The thing that surprised us most while making our film was: The real life unfolding, the war on Lebanon and the fall of the Syrian regime.
Our favorite moment/scene/sequence in our film is: When we meet. The moment was charged with emotion and layered with mixed, unresolved feelings, hope, fear, relief, and uncertainty all at once. What once seemed distant and impossible finally took shape in front of us. The story no longer lived behind images or mediated frames; it became immediate and tangible, more intimate, more fragile, and undeniably human.
My most invaluable piece of doc-making equipment was/is:
Habak: I still keep my camera — the very one through which I witnessed the long years of revolution, war, and siege in Syria. It has been with me in moments of fear and helplessness, and in moments where survival itself felt uncertain. This camera means more to me than just a tool; it is a silent witness, a companion that carries the memory of everything I have seen and lived through. Even today, it feels as if it still holds the smell of gunpowder and blood, traces of places and people that can never be erased. Through its lens, I did not only document destruction, but also resilience, loss, and the fragile humanity that endured amid the chaos.
Janay: I still keep the videotapes I recorded when I was in high school. They mean a great deal to me — not because they represent the beginnings of a filmmaking journey, but because they carry the raw, unfiltered memories of a life I was living at that time. Inside those tapes are moments of curiosity, confusion, fear, and discovery, fragments of a world that was shaping me long before I understood it. They are reminders of who I was, of how I saw things then, and of how those experiences quietly carved their way into who I am today. These images are not just recordings; they are preserved pieces of my memory, holding emotions, voices, and moments that continue to define my identity.
My must-have snack to get me through hours in the editing room is:
Habak: Coffee and cigarettes.
Janay: Cheese.
One piece of documentary-filmmaking advice we’d like to share with aspiring documentarians is: Continue on this path, however difficult it may be, even when doubts, exhaustion, or uncertainty try to pull you away. What we do as filmmakers is not easy, but it is deeply meaningful. We take real stories — often fragile, painful, and unfinished — and transform them into films that allow others to see, feel, and understand lives far beyond their own. Through cinema, we invite the viewer to step into another world, to walk alongside people they have never met, and to experience moments they may never live themselves. This act of bridging distance, of creating empathy and connection through images and sound, is powerful. And in a world that too often feels divided and indifferent, that ability — to make someone feel closer to another human being — is, in itself, a profoundly important and beautiful thing.
Want to check out Janay and Habak’s film, or just learn more about it?
Get the scoop, and your tickets, here!
