Director Hasan Oswald got to know a Yazidi translator on his previous project and wanted to make a film about the victims of the 2014 Yazidi genocide. In 2018, he met Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad, then 14, having just returned from captivity by ISIS since she was 10. Oswald gave Alhamad the camera to film her life and her family’s search for other kidnapped family members.
“Camera was my best friend, I always say” Alhamad said at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary event. “She was my best friend. I called the camera she because I don’t have a sister, that’s why. It was making me feel so good and so strong.”
Oswald said he considered that interviewing Alhamad about her kidnapping might retraumatize her. Letting Alhamad guide the film gave her control over what she shared and also highlighted moments of beauty amid the turmoil in Iraq.
“We allowed them to just be kids,” Oswald said. “There was beauty in that but also the resilience that Mediha showed, and the community and her siblings show. It’s really incredible. Despite what Mediha had been through, every morning she was the one who sent the voice note, ‘Hi Hasan, what are we doing today? What are we filming today? How are you?’”
Alhamad gave an update on her siblings also featured in the film. Two of her three brothers are in school.
“They are doing well in school too,” she said. As for all three, “They are in Iraq. They are doing well.”
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Oswald hopes the Alhamads’ ability to find joy and beauty highlights for viewers the importance of protecting the Yazidi people. The 2014 attack was the 74th in the history of Yazidi people, and continues.
“We wanted to make sure that the world is clear that the issues that they see in the film, that the Yazidi community is facing, as Mediha just said, the genocide is ongoing,” he said. “This is 10 years on, and all of those issues that you just watched are very, very present today.”
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Alhamad got to travel the United States and the world attending film festival screenings of Mediha. She sat through every screening. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Doc NYC. Oswald hopes viewers recognize the people behind the stories they hear on the news.
“This is not a film of sexual enslavement, ISIS, refugees really,” he said. “This is a coming-of-age story of a young girl in the hills of Iraq. That’s what we wanted it to be.”
While not minimizing the trauma she experienced in captivity, Oswald felt Alhamad showed his cameras more.
“This is about Mediha and what her people went through,” he said. “They are so much more than captives. They are an incredible resilient group that hopefully we can all help improve their lives in some way.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
