ANGELS OF SINJAR

Duration:
113 min

Type:
Documentary

Year:
2022

Director:
Hanna Polak

Producer:
Hanna Polak/Simone Baumann

Country:
Germany, Poland

Languages:
English, Kurdish

Sinjar, Southern Kurdistan, 2014: Hanifa, a young Yezidi woman, miraculously survives the ISIS attack on the Yezidi religious and ethnic minority in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq. Hanifa escapes abduction by ISIS but her five younger sisters are all trucked off and enslaved. Based on exclusive access to one of the most dangerous and underreported places on earth, Oscar- and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak tracks Hanifa’s mission to find her sisters and bring them home – as she had promised her dying father she would.

This film is the new venture of auteur-director Hanna Polak, who has an Oscar nomination under her belt for Children of Leningradsky and the Producer Guild of America nomination for Something Better To Come (both distributed by Films Transit). Hanna had both the perseverance and skill to create striking, cinematic images that show the beauty of humanity in the most adverse circumstances. Angels of Sinjar is undoubtedly an even greater challenge, but Hanna comes well-equipped. Her ability to get close to her subjects will allow her to deliver a visceral, poetic film that celebrates the power of the human spirit.