"Birds of War": New Film Tells a Story of Love and Journalism from Syria to Lebanon

We speak with Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak, filmmakers and subjects of the new documentary Birds of War, which tells their epic love story through years of upheaval in the Middle East. Boulos, a London-based Lebanese journalist working for the BBC, and Habak, a Syrian activist and cameraman, first connected while covering the Syrian civil war and stayed in touch through years of war, revolution and exile, forming a relationship that is chronicled in the documentary by drawing on 13 years of their personal videos, voice notes and other correspondence.

The film also examines the unequal relationship between international news organizations and local journalists whose work they rely on, the fraught political history between Syria and Lebanon, and how Boulos and Habak’s personal connection overcame those divisions.

“Without our journalistic relationship, [we] would have never been together. I would have never opened my heart to somebody like him,” says Boulos. “We can be any race, any gender, any religion, any background, but at the same time we’re all humans.”

Birds of War premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Journalistic Impact.