Sundance 2021: Sabaya | Review
Sabaya is an extraordinarily immersive, harrowing and heartbreaking documentary on a heroic group of volunteers from the Yazidi Home Center rescuing young women held by Daesh in the Al-Hol camp.
We were left speechless after attending the World Premiere of Sabaya, which took place in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The film stands out as one of the top hits of this year’s festival.
Set in and around the most dangerous Daesh (ISIS) camp in the Middle East, Sabaya follows Mahmud and his colleagues from the Yazidi Home Center as they strive to identify and rescue Yazidi young women enslaved by Daesh and still held captive in the notorious Al-Hol Camp in Northeast Syria. These girls, termed “Sabaya” by Daesh, are the Yazidi girls who were forced into sexual slavery.
Mahmud, a calm and even-tempered husband and father, spends most of his time on the phone, reaching out to various contacts to identify missing Yazidi girls in the Al-Hol Camp. As a Kurdish ethnic minority, the Yazidis, originally from the Sinjar province in Northern Iraq, have been persecuted by Daesh, which enslaved many young Yazidi girls. With the help of several infiltrators—former Sabayas who volunteer to assist in rescuing others—Mahmud and his colleagues organize high-risk interventions in the camp to extract the identified Sabayas.
Throughout the film, Mahmud successfully rescues several young girls, aged 7 to 17, who have been in captivity for years. These girls were forcibly married to Daesh soldiers, sold multiple times, and subjected to sexual slavery.
Filmed in a direct cinema style, Sabaya offers an extraordinarily immersive journey alongside Mahmud and his colleagues. The risks they face are countless, yet they remain remarkably calm, even when their van is pursued and fired upon by a Daesh vehicle as they leave the Al-Hol Camp after rescuing a young Yazidi girl.
The film is undeniably poignant and raw, depicting the unbearable atrocities suffered by these young girls. It is heart-wrenching to witness them being rescued from the horrors of Daesh captivity and grappling with the challenges of rebuilding their lives. Many have lost most of their family members and endured unspeakable trauma.
The most admirable aspect of the film is Mahmud’s character, whose humanity knows no bounds. Despite the immense risks he faces daily, combined with his remarkable humility, Mahmud tirelessly strives to reunite more Sabayas with their families. His heroism, humility, and boundless humanity shine through in every scene.
As the film emphasizes, Mahmud and the Yazidi Home Center have managed to save over 200 women, yet more than 2,000 are still missing.
