This sensitive, frequently harrowing observational documentary from the Kurdish-Swedish film-maker Hogir Hirori (The Deminer) follows the rescue and rehabilitation of Yazidi women and girls abducted by Islamic State and held captive at the al-Hawl camp in north-eastern Syria. Many of them are kept as sex slaves or “sabayas”. Mahmud and Ziyad, two volunteers from a small organisation called the Yazidi Home Center, lead the extraction operation with the help of former sabayas turned infiltrators.
Most upsetting, and perhaps most moving, is the repetitive, routine nature of the rescues, which have evidently become part of their day-to-day lives. Hirori’s attentive eye captures all kinds of valiant acts; when Mahmud’s mother, Zahra, burns the black clothing the women have been forced to wear, it’s a form of heroism too.
