Meryem

The extraordinary story of a young reporter in war-torn Kobanî.

The Yazidi girls were often just teenagers when they were abducted from their villages in the mountains of Kurdistan by fighters of the Islamic State. They were forced to convert to Islam and were sold as sex slaves to terrorists. Now that the survivors have returned to their homeland, the question arises as to whether they will be able to start anew. Theatre-maker Hussein is trying to help them find a new life.

If Sidik manages to spot a leopard in his beloved mountains of Kurdistan, the area can be declared a protected nature reserve. Will that finally bring peace?

Habib tends his flock of sheep in a broad, rolling landscape, chain-smokes and every now and then catches a partridge. In the early 1980s he and his family had to flee as the Turkish army razed thousands of villages in the southeast of the country in an attempt to break Kurdish resistance. Habib has now returned to the village where he was born, and has started a new family, his first family having decided to stay in Istanbul.

Haron is a Kurdish sniper operating within the Syrian town of Kobani. As he fights the IS occupation, he shares his hopes and fears for the future of his country.