19 year-old Hala escapes an arranged marriage by crossing the Euphrates River to find a new home at a Kurdish Women’s Protection Unit – a unit which soon after liberates her hometown of Minbij from the Islamic State. For her female fellow soldiers, the enemy is not just IS, but patriarchy in general, with the ideal of marriage as the ultimate oppressive institution. The brutalities these young women have experienced at the hands of their husbands
and within their own families lead them to the other side of the river where they are trained in combat and educated in the feminist ideals of the Kurdish Women’s Movement..
Antonia Kilian
2021
Germany