A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

This montage film is made from previously unknown archival materials. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 in the Best Documentary Short Subject category (and was a part of the Short Film Program at the Sundance Film Festival), and shows us an almost forgotten meeting that took place in the Madison Square Garden, New York’s most famous arena – the meeting that was held by the German American Bund, a Nazi organization. It is 1939, and in the giant square Americans are making statements about white supremacy, not yet knowing into what horrors for Europe and the entire world will the Nazi regime turn into in just seven months when it invades Poland. A Night at the Garden turns out to be a chillingly relevant film for a divided America that recently saw yet another splash of race-based violence.