'For Sama' Wins Audience Award at Sheffield Doc Fest

Scored by Manners McDade's Nainita Desai, For Sama (dir. Waad al-Khateab and Edward Watts) has won the Audience Award at the Sheffield Doc Fest. Recognised with the Best Documentary Award earlier this year at SXSW and now Best Documentary Prize at Cannes Film Festival, the film depicts both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. 

The Audience Award (in memory of Dr Clifford Shaw) is voted for by the event’s audience. For Sama received the highest audience vote during the festival and also received standing ovations and critical accolades.

The documentary also received a special mention in the Grand Jury Award (together with Hazzan Fazili’s Midnight Traveller) and was described as a unique and unforgettable film.

Director Waad al-Kateab dedicated the award to the people of Syria stating: “We dedicate this Sheffield Doc Fest Audience Award to all the people in Syria who every day are being massacred by the Assad regime and Russian forces ongoing bombardment. This is for you. We will never stop in our quest for peace, justice and dignity for our people.”

Composer Nainita Desai, whose work traverses the worlds of television, film and gaming through mainstream scoring to more experimental sound design, was named the second most prominent female media composer in the UK this year.

Nainita is the BAFTA Breakthrough Brit 2016-2017 and a recent winner of the Music+Sound Award for Best Feature Film Score, a GOPO Romania Film Awards and NaturVision nominee 2019 for Best Film Score and RTS West Award 2019 Nominee for BBC series Extraordinary Rituals.