The gripping documentary, “For Sama,” spares a moment for levity when Waad al-Kateab films her husband, Hamza al-Kateab, as he tells a joke common in their home city of Aleppo, Syria: If you want to be safe from the government’s attacks, head to the front lines. Hospitals, like the one Hamza runs, are no guarantee of sanctuary — in fact, places that promise respite are the most frequent targets of the government’s bombs.

The two, friends and allies, were living in Aleppo when Syrians began to protest against the government in 2012. Alight with the promise of revolution, she picked up a camera, while he opened a hospital in the rebel-controlled eastern part of the city. For five years, al-Kateab continued filming. By 2016, they were married, and the hospital was the only one left standing through the Russian and Syrian airstrikes aimed at silencing the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian government .

“For Sama” compiles al-Kateab’s footage from inside Aleppo, as she and her husband lived among citizens under siege. With bracing intimacy, she uses voice-over to address the film to her daughter, Sama, born in January 2016. Sama’s first year of life is marked by rains of bombs. She doesn’t cry like a normal child, al-Kateab notes, wondering what her daughter will think of her choice to remain in the city.