“Our Aim Was to Document a Reconciliation Process Led by Kurdish Women”: Alba Sotorra on Human Rights Watch Film Festival Doc The Return: Life After ISIS

Terrorist or victim? That seems to be the animating question behind Alba Sotorra’s The Return: Life After ISIS. Premiering at SXSW, and selected for the Special Presentations section at this year’s virtual Hot Docs (April 29-May 9), the film is an up close and personal look at a group of Western women caught in nightmarish limbo in a detention camp in northern Syria. All left behind First World lives – in the US and Canada, the UK, Germany, and The Netherlands – with online propaganda-shaped dreams of rescuing fellow Muslims and finding shared community. And all ultimately became disillusioned and disavowed the terrorist organization after years of war zone trauma. But no matter. Regardless of country of origin, not a single government will allow any to come home. Barcelona-based Sotorra (Commander Arian) fortunately found time just prior to the film’s upcoming run at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (May 19-27) to fill Filmmaker in on venturing into this Kurdish-controlled camp of Kafkaesque last resort. And on how she and an all-female crew managed to cut through the media sensationalized takes to capture the nuanced stories of those caught up in a shameful global game of political hot potato.

To read all about it check out my interview at Filmmaker magazine.