Four Emmy nominations to The Cave

Syrian director Feras Fayyad's Oscar-nominated 'The Cave' was named in four categories, as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards on 28 July:

Outstanding Directing For A Documentary / Nonfiction Program: 
Feras Fayyad

Outstanding Writing For A Nonfiction Program: 
Alisar Hasan and Feras Fayyad

Outstanding Cinematography For A Nonfiction Program: 
Muhammed Khair Al Shami, Ammar Suleiman and Mohammed Eyad

Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking: 
Producers Kirstine Barfod and Sigrid Dyekjær

Fayyad's Danish-produced 'The Cave' centres on Dr. Amani Ballour who has been instrumental in creating an underground hospital, known as The Cave, in Al Ghouta, where airstrikes have claimed thousands of lives since 2012. Fayyad's team has followed Ballour from 2016 to 2018, documenting the hectic daily life at the hospital – from the harrowing to the mundane – and shining a light on both the quiet details and the gruesome costs of war.

Read more:

The Cave: Dr. Amani challenging the stereotypes

'The Cave' picked up the Grolsch People’s Choice Documentary Award at its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and was also awarded at the Cinema Eye Honors.

'The Cave' is produced by Kirstine Barfod and Sigrid Dyekjær for Danish Documentary with support from the Danish Film Institute, TV 2 Denmark, National Geographic, IMS International Media Support, Doha Film Institute, SWR, Yun Sat Yen Foundation, Docs Up Fund and Normandie for Peace.

Fayyad's previous film, ‘Last Men in Aleppo', picked up the award for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards in 2018.

The 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on 20 September with Jimmy Kimmel as host.

The Cave

Feras Fayyad, 2019

For the besieged Syrian civilians, hope and safety lie underground, inside the subterranean hospital known as the Cave, where pediatrician and managing physician Dr. Amani Ballour and her colleagues Samaher and Dr. Alaa have claimed their right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts, doing their jobs in a way that would be unthinkable in the oppressively patriarchal culture that exists above.

Feras Fayyad

Director, writer, radio producer. Born in Syria. Feras Fayyad has a BA in audiovisual arts and filmmaking from the international film and television school EICAR in Paris.