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Women at heart of Dahuk film festival

From Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad to the film "Girls of the Sun" at the Cannes Film Festival, 2018 has been a year of Kurdish women.
Yazidi children hold pictures of Nadia Murad, who won the Nobel Peace prize, in Duhok, Iraq October 5, 2018. REUTERS/Ari Jalal - RC1A9917F900

It should come as no surprise that this year’s Dahuk International Film Festival (DIFF) looks at women’s representation and contributions to Kurdish cinema, given that 2018 is a year of Kurdish women’s experiences being foregrounded on and off screen. The film “Girls of the Sun,” which competed for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, follows a battle-hardened Kurdish military unit in northern Syria comprised exclusively of women once held captive by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). Yazidi activist Nadia Murad received the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Her tale of persistence in the face of deep trauma is told through a new documentary released this month p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} (but not featured at the festival), “On Her Shoulders,” by Alexandria Bombach.

Bina Qeredaxi, a co-founder and former program manager of the festival, has witnessed the increased participation of women in Kurdish film and in the festival itself over the past few years. “We wanted to promote this topic to both support women currently in the field and also encourage women on the sidelines to jump in,” she told Al-Monitor.

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