Sabaya
On the first day of Digital MIPTV, London-headquartered sales agent Dogwoof confirmed a string of sales for
Seeds of Deceit and
Sabaya, both of which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Seeds of Deceit (pictured) sold to RTL (Germany), VRT (Belgium), VGTV (Norway), SVT (Sweden), DR (Denmark), Mediawan (France), Channel 8 (Israel), Yesdocu (Israel), Sky (New Zealand) and Movistar (Spain).
Sabaya, meanwhile, sold to Studio Hamburg (Germany), SND (France), Dalton (Benelux), FrontRow (MENA), Sky (New Zealand) and Vertigo (Hungary).
The Dutch three-part series
Seeds of Deceit, directed by Miriam Guttman, is an investigation into how a respected fertility doctor, Dr. Karrbaat, clandestinely inseminated over 65 of his patients with his own semen.
Hogir Hirori visited a Syrian camp where Daesh soldiers are kept captive. A great many Yazidi women who have been kidnapped and are being kept as sex slaves by these same ISIS fighters are yet to be freed. The film follows volunteers who risk their lives to bring the so-called
s
abayas back to their families. The director tells us more about the production of the film and the situation of his protagonists.
(The article continues below - Commercial information)
Cineuropa: How did you organise the shoot?
Hogir Hirori: I knew of the existence of the Yazidi centre and went to Syria to do some research. There, I met Mahmud, who volunteers to find and rescue Yazidi women in one of the big camps where Daesh soldiers are kept captive. To be able to shoot, I had to get special permits. As a rule, a journalist gets a permit to enter the camp, but he or she is only allowed in for two hours, and they are told what they have the right to film. I needed a permit for a much longer time, actua
Impressively exciting and strikingly novel.
TWITTER
The rescues of Yazidi girls and women forced into sex slavery by ISIS supporters are captured in Hogir Hirori s hyper-immersive documentary.
The last major stronghold of the Islamic State also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh fell in March 2019, when the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces liberated the town of Baghouz, on the border between Syria and Iraq. At the peak of its power, ISIS controlled a swath of land the size of Britain between those two Middle Eastern countries, with some 8 million people under the rule of its so-called caliphate. Among the militant group’s highest-profile victims were the Yazidi, a religious minority in northern Iraq that was targeted by ISIS for genocide and the mass kidnapping, rape and forced marriage of its young girls.
Top row: CODA, Courtesy of Sundance Institute; Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), photo by Mass Distraction Media; Flee, courtesy of Sundance Institute. Bottom row: Hive, photo by Alexander Bloom; Writing With Fire, courtesy of Sundance Institute; Ma Belle, My Beauty, courtesy of Sundance Institute. Park City, UT After six days and 73 feature films, the 2021 Sundance Film Festival’s Awards Ceremony took place tonight, hosted by actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, with jurors presenting 24 prizes for feature filmmaking and seven for Short Films. Honorees, named in total below, represent new achievements in global independent storytelling. Bold, intimate, and humanizing stories prevailed across categories, with Grand Jury Prizes awarded to
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s
Summer Of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) secured the coveted U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary and Audience Award: U.S. Documentary at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival awards, held last night (Feb. 2).
The festival’s awards ceremony was hosted by actor and comedian Patton Oswalt. Jurors presented 24 prizes for feature filmmaking and seven for short films.
Thompson’s
Summer Of Soul (pictured), produced by David Dinerstein, Robert Fyvolent and Joseph Patel, tells the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival, held during the same summer as Woodstock in 1969. The event drew over 300,000 people to celebrate African American music and culture. The documentary unearths footage from the festival after more than 50 years.