As the forces of ISIS and Assad tear through villages and society in Syria and Northern Iraq, a group of brave and idealistic women are taking up arms against them—and winning inspiring victories. Members of “The Free Women’s Party” come from Paris, Turkish Kurdistan, and other parts of the world. Their dream: To create a Democratic Syria, and a society based on gender equality. Guns in hand, these women are carrying on a movement with roots that run 40 years deep in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. GIRL’S WAR honors the legacy of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK who was assassinated in Paris in 2013, and reflects on the sacrifices made by all of the women in the movement, who have endured jail, rape, war, and persecution in their quest to liberate their lives and sisters from male dominance. With scenes of solidarity, strength, and love amongst these brave women soldiers, GIRL'S WAR is a surprising story of Middle Eastern feminism on the front lines.
Documentary on Sakine Cansız (Sara), the Kurdish revolutionary and PKK co-founder killed in Paris in January 2013 by Turkish agents.
A Kurdish woman is sentenced to six years of house arrest with an electronic ankle bracelet. The charge: supporting terrorist activities. From now on an invisible border runs through her garden in a Turkish village, which she repeatedly trespasses. Her older son is torn between obedience and rebellion. How far will he go to protect his mother from further punishment?
Her guerilla friends find out that Sakîne has never seen herself in a mirror. So they go on the quest to transport a tall mirror up into the mountains.
Kurdistan, partitioned between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, could play a major role in a torn Middle East. But who are the Kurds? What influence do they have? Who exactly is Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party? An enlightening investigation by Luis Miranda.
A portrait of David Rouiller, a young Swiss man who joined the Kurdish freedom movement PKK five years ago. Rouiller, the son of a university Professor and a former President of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, gave up a comfortable and safe existence in Switzerland, and the amenities of a western lifestyle, to commit his life and strength to the ideals of the Kurdish freedom fight. Is he an adventurer, a dreamer, an idealist, a hero? Is his commitment visionary or illusory?
A documentary on Royava's suspended future, while caught in the crossfire between Damas, Ankara, Tehran and Moscow.
Banned since 1993 in France and Germany, does the PKK still represent a danger? A dive into the heart of a complex geopolitical issue, where the fight for freedom, manipulation and pressure are intertwined.
Spearheading the 2017 battle for Raqqa against ISIS, the Kurdish forces of Rojava tried to put together a revolutionary political vision in the Levant: gender equality, self-determination, democracy, popular self-defense, anti-sectarism... But their democratic confederalism, built on mine fields and war economy, found itself struggling between imperialist foreign forces and Turkish nationalism.