Waad Al-Khatib on the Turkish-Syrian documentary “Death Without Mercy” about the earthquake

On February 6, 2023, after a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Turkish-Syrian border, becoming the deadliest disaster in the region’s modern history, Syrian filmmaker Waad al-Kateab was in London, worried about her family and friends and helpless.

The activist and world-traveling Oscar-nominated director of “For Sama,” a memoir of the civil war, was unable to reach the stricken area after fleeing Bashar al-Assad’s regime. But she immediately reached out to people on the ground, including her friends Fadi Halabi, the Oscar-winning White Helmets short film photographer, and Fouad Sayed Issa, founder of the Syrian refugee-led humanitarian group Violet.

Soon after, Al-Khatib received a call from prominent producer Sheila Nevins. This led to her directing Death Without Mercy, a powerful documentary produced by MTV Documentary, which premiered at the Sheffield Documentary Festival in June. Combining intimate first-hand footage with TV news reports, social media, CCTV, drone footage, archival material and keynote interviews, the film follows a “you are there” narrative structure that chronicles the first ten days following the earthquake that killed more than 60,000 people.

Al-Khatib chose this trick to frame the story because “that’s when we figured everything out,” she says in an interview with Variety, noting that “after the tenth day, there was no way anyone could be alive under the rubble.”

What was your first reaction when you learned about this devastating earthquake?

Like many other Syrians around the world, I was shocked. From the moment I heard what was happening, I was like a filmmaker: “We need to do something about this.” But I found myself desperate and helpless as a refugee living in the UK, unable to go there; unable to do anything more than call people, to talk on the phone, firstly to my family who fortunately survived. They stayed on the street until they were able to reach Ankara.

How did you start creating the document?

I immediately started reaching out to people through the groups we belonged to as activists. We started trying to help in any way we could. We would just share the locations of people we knew, photos of people who hadn’t been found, and collect donations. I remember one of the first calls I made was to Fadi. I’ve known Fadi since 2011 when he worked for the White Helmets. His brother Yaman, who was missing under the rubble, was also a friend of ours. I called him, and he was speechless. I was just trying to tell him, “Please, be strong Fadi. The only way you can do this is to save yourself.” [to] “Photograph yourself.” But we didn’t really think about it. [specifics of] From a movie. Our first idea was to document everything we could.

As far as I know, things took to the next level when I got a call from producer Sheila Nevin. Right?

Yes, when Sheila Nevins called me, she said she wanted to do an observational film about the earthquake. I thought, “Yes, this could be an opportunity for them to tell their story.” So I called them because I knew Fadi had a lot of footage from the first 10 days. As for Fouad, I saw his Instagram, he’s not a filmmaker himself, but there were people around him filming. He also posted a lot of stories on Instagram, and it was an amazing story that his wife and child survived. So I thought, “We can do this!”

When telling the stories of two Syrian families in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, you had to make some quick decisions. Was that difficult?

To be honest, I was living with them second by second, minute by minute. We couldn't sleep the first two days. And when I thought, “Okay, we're going to do this.” The first thing I said to myself was that I'm going to try to put myself in their shoes and think, “What do they know at this point? What's important to them?” That's a very important element in the film. Being with them in their experience. It's like a race against time. And we expressed that in the film. Every second counts; every minute counts. That's why I decided to start the film with the earthquake. And then we go with these characters individually to understand their situation, their circumstances, their situation. I was trying to make the audience live the ordeal of each of them. And yes, time was the most important element in this experience.

My impression is that this film can be seen as a form of therapy. A way for its characters to try to come to terms with this huge tragedy. Is this a fair assessment of what happened on their part?

The first thing they said was, 'We want to make this film because we wanted to talk about our families. It was really important to give them a space to see who we lost, because 60,000 people, that's a big number, a huge number. For every person we lost, there's a family. There's someone who's still really affected by this loss. And they just wanted to bring them back to life, in a different way, to remember them in a good way.

The piece also shows the level of mismanagement. First, in terms of construction. Then in the response of the Turkish government and various other institutions. Do you think this helps reinforce the idea of ​​complete incompetence and negligence that led to the deaths of 60,000 people?

I think that's what they definitely want. [the film’s protagonists] We are looking for this, and so am I. It is a call for justice because these people did not just die because of a natural disaster. There is corruption; there is a systemic failure on the part of the Turkish government and the United Nations. We cannot accept this and live with it in any way. I think this will support the other legal work that is happening in Turkey, and also around the world, towards accountability on the part of the Turkish government for its failure.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Watch the trailer for “Death Without Mercy” below:

DDA Courtesy

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