By John Corrado
The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto
Janay Boulos is a Lebanese journalist living in London, working as an Arabic correspondent for the BBC. Abd Alkader Habak is a photographer in Syria, forced to flee from the city of Idlib to Aleppo, as the Assad government cracked down on rebel forces.
Alkader becomes Janay’s source for information from the frontlines of the war, providing her with images and videos of what is happening on the ground. As they exchange messages back and forth, a pen-pal relationship also forms between them. They affectionately call each other “bird.”Despite her being a Lebanese Christian, and him a Syrian Muslim, a romance blossoms.
Boulos and Habak are credited as co-directors on Birds of War, and the documentary unfolds mostly through footage captured by the two subjects over more than a decade, with their texts and audio messages to each other appearing onscreen. It’s a feat of editing to turn this into a compelling and concise narrative, with the roughly 85 minute film working primarily as a human interest story.
If Birds of War isn’t the most politically complex portrait of these conflicts, it mainly works as an engaging love story against the backdrop of Middle Eastern instability. Editor Will Hewlitt deserves a lot of credit for his assembly, and the brief running time helps with its audience accessibility.
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