The air is thick with smoke and dust, the ground littered with burning vehicles.
Children scream as activist and videographer Abd Alkader Habak rushes to help after a bombing in Aleppo in 2017.
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A voice note pops up on his phone: "My bird, are you OK?" says BBC journalist Janay Boulos.
"Get away from there, run."
For over a year, Habak and Boulos had been documenting atrocities by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Their connection deepened despite the distance.
This exchange marked the shift from colleagues to something more. "I don't want footage," Boulos says, fear in her voice.
"I don't want anything, just please take care."
A Love Story Against War
"Birds of War," released this week in the UK, tells their remarkable story. It uses 13 years of archive footage, voice notes, selfies, video calls, and texts.
The film shows how Lebanese journalist Boulos and Syrian activist Habak found each other amid revolution, war, and hostile borders.
"Originally I wanted to make a documentary about Lebanon and the war," says Boulos, the director. "But we should tell the story how we saw it."
Smartphones and the internet have made first-person war narratives a staple.
Yet "Birds of War" is not just about war; it portrays what it means to be Syrian or Lebanese at this precarious time.
It explores belonging—to each other, to a cause, to a nation—and the hopes and fears that accompany these bonds.
