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Filmmakers Discuss Documentary on Yazidi Genocide After ‘Mediha’ Screening at Film Forum
by Chad Bouchard
A young Yazidi woman who was the central figure of a documentary received a standing ovation after its screening at the Film Forum in New York last week.
The film, Mediha, follows Mediha Alhamad’s three-year search for justice after surviving kidnapping and enslavement by ISIS in 2014 at the age of 9, along with her younger brothers, Ghazwan and Adnan. Alhamad filmed much of the footage herself, as a kind of personal video diary.
On Oct. 11 and 12, the theater hosted two Q&A sessions with Alhamad along with the director, Hasan Oswald, among other panelists. OPC Vice President Deborah Amos, who moderated the Oct. 12 event, said “there was a gasp in the theater” after the screening when the audience recognized Alhamad and rose to their feet in applause.
Amos called the film “horrifying and beautiful,” and said the audience “would have stayed for hours to hear Mediha answer questions about her new life.”
Oswald and one of the producers, Fahrinisa Campana, received OPC grants in 2020 to help freelancers during the pandemic. OPC members Annelise Mecca and Alexander Spiess were also producers, along with Stephen Nemeth.
Oswald knew he wanted to work on a film about the 2014 Yazidi genocide, and soon after he started investigating in Iraq in 2019, he said “it became very quickly apparent that this was not my story to tell, it was their story to tell. And it was a very good opportunity to try something that would rebalance the participant-director relationship.”
After only three days of searching at a refugee camp housing many Yazidis, Oswald found Alhamad through her brother Ghazwan, who was at a photo workshop that Mecca had been teaching. He showed the siblings how to use the video equipment and left it with them, not knowing what role that material would play in the film.
“We got back that first batch of footage, and we realized – ‘wow, this is the story,’” he said. “So Mediha took the reins very early on, not only with her cinematic know-how, but she understood storytelling, and understood what we were trying to do.”
Mediha said she was thrilled when she first received a video camera and photo camera from Oswald.
“I didn’t have therapy. I didn’t have trusted friends. And then when I held the camera, I told myself – it’s like a best friend. The camera was like my best friend. I talked about my feelings, my story, and my people’s story too.”
Alhamad has participated in one of the only active investigations in Iraq to prosecute ISIS members for the crimes they committed against Yazidis.
She said she plans to study to become a lawyer to “help women and girls around the world.” Alhamad added that she is also still interested in filmmaking, and joked that she hoped to work on a sequel, which could be called Mediha II.
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