The Los Angeles Independent Women’s Film Awards and the People’s Film Festival in Harlem, New York City will hold screenings of Hêza, a documentary film about a Yazidi girl’s journey from Islamic State captive to military commander.
Hêza was among the award winners in March in the Boden International Film Festival in Sweden and was also awarded at the Druk International Film Festival this year.
The film tells the story of ISIS’s 2014 genocidal attacks on the Yazidis in Iraq’s Sinjar (Shengal), and follows the story of a survivor through her pain and struggle for justice.
The story of Hêza is the story of all the women who were abducted, enslaved, killed, pushed into suicide, but also those who marched to freedom.
In the documentary, Hêza is brought by ISIS to Raqqa, where she attempted suicide many times. She managed to escape eventually, and joined the Ezidxan Women’s Units (YJŞ). A year later, she returned to Raqqa as a YJŞ commander and took part in the liberation of Raqqa from ISIS occupation in 2016.
