CPH:DOX 2025 - Death Without Mercy

Five years after her Oscar-nominated film 'For Sama', Syrian journalist and filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab returns with a gripping documentary that examines the aftermath of the disaster that struck southern Turkey and western Syria in February 2023: an earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people. 

Al-Kateabs uses mobile videos, surveillance footage and news reports to provide a detailed reconstruction of the devastating events that took place in an area that is home to thousands of Syrian refugees, focusing on two of the many victims and their bereaved families.

Although the disaster is natural, Al-Kateab makes it clear that it is also political. She criticizes the corruption of a government that allowed the construction of buildings not designed to withstand earthquakes in a region otherwise known to be at risk. And she pays tribute to the survivors' will to resist in the midst of a merciless system.