Dear Nizar, Dear Maryam

Hamada and Lamees Shaqoura carry their children, Nizar and Maryam, through the streets of Gaza City. Business Insider Amid a thousand days of destruction and deepening famine, a food blogger carves out a memory of Gaza for his children. Hamada and Lamees Shaqoura carry their children, Nizar and Maryam, through the streets of Gaza City. Business Insider Business Insider has recently completed production on "Dear Nizar, Dear Maryam."The project is a follow-up to the Emmy Award-winning video about Hamada Shaqoura's transition from food blogger to wartime chef.This is Business Insider's first feature-length documentary. It will be released on the 2026-2027 international film festival circuit.Film synopsisBefore the war, Hamada Shaqoura was a food blogger in Gaza. He filmed restaurants, markets, meals, and everyday life as he built a future with his wife, Lamees, in Gaza City. Then the war began, and everything changed.Told by Hamada as a love letter to his two young children, Nizar and Maryam, the film chronicles one family's experience of more than 1,000 days of war in Gaza.Nizar is born into displacement. Maryam is born as famine deepens. Hamada and Lamees try to shield their children from a reality no child should inherit. Through intimate family videos, mobile-phone footage, social media posts, and voice notes, the film traces Hamada's transformation from food blogger to wartime cook. It follows him into the depths of his own hunger and his fear that he will not be able to keep his family alive.The film moves between the Gaza Hamada remembers and the Gaza into which his children are born. It is a father's attempt to preserve small memories for them — a record of endurance.This is a film about parenthood in a war zone, what happens to ordinary life when survival takes over, and the responsibility of leaving testimony for children too young to understand what they have lived through. Poster image for "Dear Nizar, Dear Maryam" Business Insider Director's statement"I am a Palestinian journalist and filmmaker based in London. For the past two and a half years, I have watched the war in Gaza from afar, like many Palestinians, with grief, helplessness, and a need to do something useful with that pain.This film grew out of that need. I wanted to bring forward a voice from Gaza that audiences could recognize. Hamada Shaqoura was a food blogger before the war — newly married, ambitious, funny, creative, and building a life around food and social media. Then war transformed everything.We started by making a short film about Hamada's transition from food blogger to wartime chef. In 2025, we published "The Man Who Feeds Gaza's Children," which won the National Emmy Award for an Outstanding Light Feature — Long Form. But we continued to film his life through ceasefire, destruction, and famine.The film became a love letter from Hamada to his children, Nizar and Maryam. It is a record of the Gaza that existed before the war, and of what their family endured to keep them alive.Hamada's voice and language are the heart of the film. Arabic is the language of his home, his children, his fear and his love, and I wanted the film to carry that intimacy without losing it in translation.As a mother, I kept asking: how do you protect your children in a war zone? This film answers that question through one family's daily life, love, fear, and resilience."— Reem Makhoul, July 2026 Food influencer Hamada Shaqoura turns community cook. Business Insider Hamada and Lamees Shaqoura play with their daughter, Maryam. Business Insider For more information:Business Insider Communications | comms@businessinsider.com Most popular Business Insider tells the stories you want to know about the world of business, technology, and finance Business Insider tells the stories you want to know about the world of business, technology, and finance Business Insider tells the stories you want to know about the world of business, technology, and finance Business Insider tells the stories you want to know about the world of business, technology, and finance Business Insider tells the stories you want to know about the world of business, technology, and finance Business Insider tells the stories you want to know about the world of business, technology, and finance Reem Makhoul is an Emmy Award–winning video journalist who produces documentaries, and visual investigations using innovative reporting and open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques.Her work has received major recognition, including a News & Documentary Emmy for The Man Who Feeds Gaza’s Children documentary, a duPont-Columbia Award for her video report on Gaza's Coastline Economy, and a SABEW Award for her video report: Gaza's Economic Collapse.She joined Business Insider in 2022 to run the global documentary series Still Standing, overseeing a team that produced short documentaries on disappearing crafts around the world. She previously worked as a video journalist for The New York Times in Jerusalem and New York, and as a staff video journalist for The Wall Street Journal, covering ISIS, refugees, and Middle East issues.Born in the Galilee, Reem is fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. She is also the founder of a children’s publishing house and writes books in colloquial Arabic.You can email her at rmakhoul@insider.com, or follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.Expertise: Investigative documentaries, visual investigations, OSINT, Middle East, digital storytelling, translation resources.