Mediha

Saw this at the Movies That Matter 2024 filmfestival in The Hague. Lots of issues pass by in this story. Women who return after having lived years under ISIS are not always accepted by their original society, for two reasons. (1) They are generally converted (forcefully, but still) to Islam, something in their (Yazidi) beliefs you cannot simply shake off. (2) Children who came forth from their life within ISIS, are separated from their natural mother and she cannot keep them with her. Such obstacles result in alienating these women from their hometown and their own people, depriving them from a useful future. What are these women to do??

Apart from that, when trying to get these women back, it proves very difficult to find them. They usually receive new names, thereby destroying all traces back to their original life. Also, they are often sold more than once, so following their tracks is far from trivial. So-called rescuers are needed as an intermediary. We see part of this demonstrated when searching for Mediha's lost brother. Eventually they find him in Turkey, where his current "parents" are willing to give him away when granted amnesty for their ISIS misdeeds. His return is not easy for him, however, as he seriously misses his "mother". He weeps all day long while suffering homesickness. For him, this homecoming, albeit happy for the family wanting him back, works out as a stressful event. Understandably, he cannot see the big picture and cannot realize this new family is his actual natural family. Moreover, he must unlearn Turkish too, an extra complication in communicating with him.

Another angle is prosecuting the ISIS-men who stole these women from their home in the first place, forcing them into slavery, and even selling them to other men within ISIS. Some numbers were reported about cases where it was possible to identify the men in question. Alas, it was a disappointingly low number (say a handful in total). In other words, another avenue without success.

Finally, the women in question usually don't talk freely about their experiences, mostly due to commonly untreated and ignored PTSS. The main protagonist in this movie was relatively unique, being able to speak about what happened, in fact a rare example. She was able to pinpoint her captor within a long series of photos shown to her, a tedious session but it had to be done as starting point for the search. Not all women can endure this, without getting overwhelmed by emotions or PTSS.

All in all, a solid and multi-facetted overview to demonstrate the difficulties in this field. Undoing the wrongs involved, is met with very many obstacles, not alone for practical reasons but also because of cultural and religious principles. The movie's urgent message shows clearly that solutions are far away.

Towards the ending of the documentary, a woman tells of the hardships that kidnapped Yazidis go through everyday: a never-ending nightmare where one is confronted daily by challenges that people of the western world only know as kind of extreme (but ever so unreal) narrative expedients, e.g. Sophie's choice. The same woman then concludes by affirming that these are truly the most voiceless people she can think of. The importance of Mediha as a documentary, then, must reside in the attempt to make present what is, in reality, absent. Throughout the whole movie, we see all kinds of people deprived of something essential such as a children, a mother, a brother, innocence. And Mediha, in a way, works perfectly as the catalyst of loss: as a daughter she is deprived of her own mother, as a sister (and in a way also as a mother) of her own brother and as a girl she is in constant mourning of her forever lost childhood. To give her the control of the camera, to intersperse glimpses of her life by her own hands, works perfectly, but only because Mediha never wants to stop sharing. What makes her extremely rare and most deserving of the amplification is, in fact, a truly unbreakable sense of resilience, even in the face of her own community telling her just not to talk, and by proxy to think, about the past. Still, she doesn't refuse to suffer, and wears her scars proudly, with a smile. Symbolized by an ending section where brother and sister reunite, and kids run in the sunset, Mediha is a documentary that stuns for the vein of unchained optimism it manages to transmit.

Mediha is a call to empathy and understanding. A story of horror and hope, of loss and resilience. It invites us to look beyond what we know, the power of Mediha, the young Yazidi girl whose childhood was stolen but found the strength to fight, survive and speak up."Mediha" (2023) struck me deeply. It is staggering how often we forget that behind every war or tragedy there are people with unique and complex stories just like her. Mediha, with her eyes full of courage, reminds us that every number in the statistics represents a broken life, a broken family, a stolen future. Her words are like an urgent call to recognize the humanity. "Mediha" invites us to be more empathetic and to recognize the strength and dignity of victims of atrocities.

I recently had the honor of watching Mediha at a festival and it is one of the most impactful documentaries I have seen. Oswald manages to potray the humanity of Mediha, and brings light to a topic that is never discussed in mainstream media. This documentary proves the struggles many women particuarly living under ISIS rule must endure. This documentary respectfully brings light to such a difficult topic. I could not stop watching or looking at the screen, even with the distressing contents at hand because of how brillant Mediha is. I think this documentary should be shown to lawmakers and activists around the world as it shows the true reality of the daily life of women under Islamic rule. Highly recommend watching when you can.

Young Yazidi woman, Mediha, tells her story. Through her lens you live her harrowing world, and the post mortem of surviving ISIS.

Director, Hasan Oswald, adeptly empowers Mediha to narrate her journey, skillfully capturing the dark nuances along side glimpses of hope.

They weave human resilience with stark tragedy and the pursuit of justice. You will think about Mediha long after the film ends, humbled and inspired.

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• Incredible access
• Poetic cinematography and editing
• Dynamic characters
• Vérité and real
• Important story of Yazidi genocide in Kurdistan
• Depth and emotion.