Birds of War is an award-winning docudrama in which its own directors fall in love while reporting the horrors in Syria. They explain why they needed a psychotherapist to complete it<\/p>\n
The air is thick with smoke and dust, the ground littered with the twisted remains of burning vehicles. Children scream and sirens blare as activist and videographer Abd Alkader Habak rushes to help the injured after the bombing of an evacuee convoy in Aleppo at the height of Syria\u2019s civil war in 2017. A voice note bubble pops up on Habak\u2019s phone screen. \u201cMy bird are you OK?\u201d says BBC journalist Janay Boulos. \u201cGet away from there, run.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more than a year, Habak and Boulos have been working to document Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad<\/a>\u2019s atrocities against his own people, their connection deepening all the time despite the physical distance. But this exchange represents the moment the pair\u2019s relationship shifts from colleagues to something more. \u201cI don\u2019t want footage,\u201d Boulos says, fear clearly detectable in her voice as she tries to follow things from her desk in London. \u201cI don\u2019t want anything, just please take care. I am here whenever you want to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/13a1b2543427d0cd175dc6cf380009f1bf89d736\/390_0_4560_3648\/master\/4560.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=8c711f1f9140f830e523ee0bc8b88a7b\" "\\"\u2018Get")
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