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Film of abducted Yazidi girl wins Dubai award

By AFP

15 December 2016   |   3:51 am

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A Kurdish Iraqi film depicting the ordeal of a Yazidi girl taken hostage by the Islamic State jihadist group won best feature at the Dubai International Film Festival on Wednesday.

Kurdistan’s director and actor, Hussein Hassan receives the “Best Muhr fiction feature” award from Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (R) during the closing ceremony of the 13th Dubai Film festival on December 14, 2016 at Madinat Jumeirah resort in Dubai. Hassan was awarded for his movie titled Reseba (The dark wind). NEZAR BALOUT / AFP

A Kurdish Iraqi film depicting the ordeal of a Yazidi girl taken hostage by the Islamic State jihadist group won best feature at the Dubai International Film Festival on Wednesday.

In “The Dark Wind”, Kurdish director Hussein Hassan tells the tale of Pero and her fiance Reko, a young Yazidi couple preparing for their wedding when IS fighters attack their village.

Young Yazidi girls including Pero are abducted and sold into slavery but Reko — who works as a security guard at an American oil firm — escapes the attack.

Devastated, he sets off in search of his fiancee and his family.

Thousands of Yazidis were massacred when IS took over the Sinjar area in Iraq in August 2014 and thousands of Yazidi women abducted and turned into sex slaves.

The 92-minute feature — an Iraqi-German-Qatari co-production — made its regional premiere at the glitzy emirate’s annual cinematic event.

It vied against 17 other films in the main competition of the festival, which screened more than 150 titles from 55 countries this year.

The Dubai event has become a major regional showcase for films from the Arab world, especially after a festival in its sister emirate Abu Dhabi ended two years ago.