Women with Gunpowder Earrings
In conversation with ISIS sympathisers
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Director - Reza Farahmand
Iranian filmmaker Reza Farahmand was born in Khorasan in 1978. Having studied Agricultural Engineering at university, he went on to direct and edit Tajrish (2011) and Women with Gunpowder Earrings (2018), for which he also directed the cinematography. Farahmand’s work was recognised with an award at the Iranian Fair International Film Festival.
Iraqi journalist Noor Al Helli was reporting on the war between Iraq and Syria from its border region when she was forced to challenge her own impression of the conflict. Having seen herself as a civilian member of the anti-ISIS troops fighting radical Islamism, she began meeting impoverished women and children who were sympathisers of Islamic State and decided to document her experiences with them. In doing this, Al Helli hoped to help us better understand the sources of conflict in the Iraqi-Syrian war and to confront allegiance to the Salafist terror organisation in its adherents