Antonia Kilian’s CPH:DOX Screener ‘The Other Side of the River’ Explores Female Emancipation in Syria’s Rojava Region
Ed Meza @edmezavarAs a feminist filmmaker, Antonia Kilian was inspired to travel to northern Syria after forces of the Kurdish autonomous region known as Rojava liberated the city of Minbij from ISIS militants.It was in Minbij that Kilian met Hala, a young Arab woman who had fled her conservative family and the prospects of a forced marriage and found safety and emancipation at a Rojavan military academy, where she trained to become a soldier in the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) — part of the Syrian Democratic Forces controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).Hala is the subject of Kilian’s film “The Other Side of the River,” which is screening at Danish doc fest CPH:DOX and also unspools at next month’s DOK.fest München.