During an interview with the courageous Syrian medic at the heart of an Oscar-nominated documentary, photographer Eslah Attar mentioned that she also spoke Arabic and that her parents were from Syria.

Dr. Amani Ballour’s face lit up. When Ballour discovered that Attar’s parents were from the same southern Syrian town as Ballour’s husband, “she said something like, ‘no way,’ and asked what the family’s name was,” Attar says.

Establishing rapport was critical in the compressed Nat Geo interview this week in New York, hours after Ballour had landed from Paris. Ballour, whose underground hospital outside Damascus saved hundreds of people injured by Russian warplanes and attacks from Syria’s dictator, had been forced to flee from Syria—and was now on an unusual