With just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and their group risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS as Sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria.

Direction: Hogir Hirori

Script: Hogir Hirori

Production: Antonio Russo Merenda

Co-Production: Hogir Hirori

Cinematography: Hogir Hirori

Editing: Hogir Hirori

Sound: Jens Kihlen

Original Title: SABAYA

Original Languages: Kurdish, Arabic

Film Production Country: Sweden

Website: https://www.sabayafilm.co.uk/

Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/sabayathefilm

Statement of the Director/s
Growing up as a Kurd in Northern Iraq, my whole childhood was plagued by war and persecution because of my Kurdish ethnicity. My family lost everything and we constantly had to flee our homes.
Life was full of hardships, but at least we had each other. I always wished I had a camera back then, to document the injustice my people were subjected to. Since then I have left the country and settled down in Sweden. But still, 20 years later, war, unrest and oppression prevail in my home country.
With Sweden now as my home base, I have had the opportunity to go back to document the fate of the Yazidis, a religious minority of Kurds. Through history, the Yazidis have endured and survived countless genocides as they have tried to uphold their own religion. In August 2014, the Yazidis became victims of a genocide by Daesh (ISIS) in its campaign to force them to convert to Islam. This has led me to make a trilogy of documentaries, to show the real consequences of war, and the raw and unretouched fate of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq – THE GIRL WHO SAVED MY LIFE in 2016, THE DEMINER in 2017 and now SABAYA.
Life in the Sinjar province where most Yazidis live was completely destroyed when Daesh attacked in 2014. Families were shattered, men killed, and women and girls kidnapped and held captive by Daesh as so called Sabaya (sex slaves). Daesh believes it is their right to use them as slaves because of their religion. I felt I had to document these cruelties, so in 2018 I packed my camera again and travelled this time to Syria to try to find out anything I could about the Sabaya. There, I met Mahmud and Ziyad, from the non-profit organisation The Yazidi Home Center, who worked day and night to try to save the hidden Sabaya in the dangerous and infamous Al-Hol camp in North East Syria. I decided to follow their work and make a documentary.
SABAYA is a film about those who risk their lives every day to save others. It is a documentary about the intolerable and unacceptable consequences of war, about abuse and suffering, but also about
humankind and compassion, second chances in life and new beginnings.

Biography of the Director/s
Hogir Hirori was born in 1980 in Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1999, he fled to Sweden and has lived since then in Stockholm. He works as a freelance photographer, editor and director and runs his own production company, Lolav Media. Hogir’s most recent work, THE DEMINER, had its world premiere at IDFA 2017, where it received the Special Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film has since travelled to more than 50 international film festivals and aired on more than 30 broadcasters
world-wide.

Filmography of the Director/s
2021 - SABAYA, doc.
2017 - THE DEMINER, doc.
2016 - THE GIRL WHO SAVED MY LIFE, doc.
2014 - VICTIMS OF ISIS, short doc.
2007 - HEWA, STRONGEST IN SWEDEN, short doc.

Awards Won
Sundance Film Festival 2021: World Documentary Directing Award
Hong Kong International Film Festival 2021, documentary competition: Jury Prize
Moscow International Film Festival 2021: Silver George for Best Documentary, Russian Documentary and Television Guild Directing Award
True/False (USA) 2021: True Life Fund Film
DocEdge 2021: Best International Director
DocAviv 2021: Best International Documentary
Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2021: Mayor of Gdynia Award, City of Poznań Freedom Award

Production Company:
Lolav Media
Hogir Hirori
BOX 30131
Stockholm, 104 25, Sweden
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +46 7 3632 1118
Website: http://www.lolav.com/

World Sales:
dogwoof Sales
Ground Floor, Overseas House
London, 19 - 23 Ironmonger Row, United Kingdom
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +44 20 7253 6244

Press:
claudiatomassini & associates
claudia Tomassini
Saarbrücker Str. 24 | Haus B | 2. OG
Berlin, 10405 , Germany
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: +49 30 44 34 06 06