A man hoists his Nikon camera up in the air – that man is Abd Alkader Habak, who took up journalistic photography after his country, Syria, entered a civil war. His work catches the eye of Janay Boulos, a BBC reporter who goes back and forth between London and Lebanon. Atrocities are happening around them. Despite said atrocities, their working relationship turns into one where they develop romantic feelings for each other. They love each other, but they have to manage their relationship as Lebanon endures both corruption and invaders from Europe.

This documentary, for the most part, is an epistolary text where its two subjects spend so much time apart. Despite both of them being from West Asia, directors Boulos and Habak show, through film, how different their lives are. The editing here in Birds of War is capable, like in the scene when Boulos shows herself in the Tube. The film, then, switches from that to Habak’s footage of emptied out highways connecting Syrian cities with each other. The viewers feel the disconnect that they probably felt during that decade, both realizing that they have to meet.

Birds of War does have an air of sentimentality to it – that score, as muted as it is, is there. This also seems like one of the most conflict free romances in a documentary about both a love and war story. The only fight they have is when Boulos wants to go back to Lebanon with her family despite its dangers. But then again, God forbid two relatively sane people find each other in a crazy world with rampant violence. Boulos and Habak celebrate the former’s birthday during a protest, showing that joy is possible and people should strive for that.

The filmmakers gave Hot Docs permission to publish this photo.