Few documentaries made an impact at Sundance comparable to Sabaya—it did win their World Cinema Documentary Directing Award, after all. Which surely played no small part in an acquisition from MTV Documentary Films, who will release Hogir Hirori’s picture, about rescue missions for women held captive by ISIS, on July 30. Naturally, a trailer ensues.
The intensity therein may be match by the final result. Writing out of Sundance, Isaac Feldberg called Sabaya‘s level of access “nerve-janglingly scary,” further saying “Hirori often presses forward, ducking under regulation mint-green tent flaps to peer into refugees’ makeshift living quarters; it’s difficult not to instinctively recoil at the potential unknowns waiting on the other side. It says plenty about Hirori that he doesn’t flinch. His camera often looks through the front and rear windshields of their vehicles, lending Sabaya a literal front-seat immediacy as this rescue team hurtles toward or away from danger.”
Find the trailer below:
A riveting and shocking documentary, SABAYA follows a group of volunteers who risk their lives to rescue Yazidi women and girls (a religious minority) held captive in one of the world’s most dangerous refugee camps. The Al-hol Camp, near the Iraqi-Syrian border, shelters 73,000 ISIS supporters. Hidden among them are thousands of Yazidis who’ve been forced into sexual slavery (termed sabaya). Mahmud and Ziyad launch carefully plotted, perilous late-night rescue missions, armed only with pistols and unreliable cell phones. Kurdish director Hogir Hirori courageously goes along for this white-knuckle ride, literally dodging bullets as the group makes their escape.