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  • 2021
  • MTV Documentary Films
  • 1 h 30 m
  • 2021
  • MTV Documentary Films
  • 1 h 30 m

Summary Armed with just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and other volunteers from the Yazidi Home Center risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS members as sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous refugee camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria. Often accompanied by burka-clad female infiltrators and w...

Directed By: Hogir Hirori

Written By: Hogir Hirori

  • 2021
  • MTV Documentary Films
  • 1 h 30 m
  • 2021
  • MTV Documentary Films
  • 1 h 30 m

Sabaya

Metascore Universal Acclaim Based on 15 Critic Reviews
must-see
86
User Score Available after 4 ratings
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Summary Armed with just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and other volunteers from the Yazidi Home Center risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS members as sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous refugee camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria. Often accompanied by burka-clad female infiltrators and w...

Directed By: Hogir Hirori

Written By: Hogir Hirori

Where to Watch

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 15 Critic Reviews
86
100% Positive
15 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 15 Critic Reviews
86
100% Positive
15 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
100
Jun 12, 2021
With unparalleled verisimilitude, Hirori captures both the helplessness and the resolve it takes to see past it, to hold on to a glimmer of hope, faint as it may be. Sabaya will leave you scarred, its images scorched forever into your mind.
By Alex Saveliev FULL REVIEW
100
Jun 12, 2021
There are many times in Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya, an anxiety-filled potboiler of a documentary about the fight to rescue enslaved girls from ISIS, where one might wonder how they pulled it off. That feeling is quickly followed by relief that they did.
By Christian Blauvelt FULL REVIEW
90
Jul 29, 2021
Mahmud and Ziyad, volunteers at the Yazidi Home Center in Syria, will make several more such trips over the course of the film, and hundreds more after the cameras stop rolling. Their task is enormous, and it demands a stoicism that Hirori’s intrepid, immersive filmmaking mirrors.
By Devika Girish FULL REVIEW
90
Jun 12, 2021
Remarkable access and nerves of steel (on the part of both the subjects and of filmmaker Hogir Hirori) makes for a riveting documentary which is as tense as it is revealing.
By Wendy Ide FULL REVIEW
80
Aug 22, 2021
[A] sensitive, frequently harrowing observational documentary.
By Simran Hans FULL REVIEW
75
Aug 4, 2021
As absorbing and illuminating as Sabaya is — and as courageous as it is as an act of filmmaking — the viewer can’t escape the fact that it’s men who have taken these women hostage, men who are rescuing them and men to whom they are returning, as long as they obey their conditions and patriarchal codes.
By Ann Hornaday FULL REVIEW
67
Jul 28, 2021
As a journalistic depiction of the rescue operations as they happen, Sabaya brims with heart-pounding tension and immediacy. But given the access obtained and Hirori’s connection to the people and the land where this grim chapter in modern history is unfolding, the superficial handling of pivotal aspects of the story is disappointing.
By Carlos Aguilar FULL REVIEW

User Reviews

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Details

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Production Company Lolav Media, Ginestra Film
Release Date Jul 30, 2021
Duration 1 h 30 m
Genres
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Awards

Millennium Docs Against Gravity
• 2 Wins & 4 Nominations
Moscow International Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
Documentary Edge Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations

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