BIRDS OF WAR follows London-based Lebanese journalist Janay and Syrian activist Habak over 13 years, using personal archives to tell a love story shaped by war, revolution, and exile. Young BBC reporter Janay Boulos first contacts Syrian cameraman Abd Alkader Habak (“Habak”) for footage during the final months of the four-year battle for Aleppo in 2016—one of the bloodiest and most decisive turning points in Syria’s brutal civil war. Their professional relationship deepens as Janay learns more about the extraordinary young man documenting the violence for her reports. Through texts, video exchanges, voice messages, and shared moments from afar, the bond between them strengthens, even as Habak’s world grows increasingly perilous amid chemical attacks and relentless bombardment. When an act of compassion puts Habak in danger and forces him to flee Syria, his relationship with Janay enters a new phase: for the first time, they meet in person, in Turkey. Distance, war, cultural differences, and familial judgment temporarily fade as the two wrap themselves in a cocoon of safety, away from the terror back home. Still, they are never far from the question that will soon haunt them: is it possible for two people from such different worlds to build a life together?