State of Affairs

The young Iraqi reporter Noor Al Helli reports from the embattled Syrian-Iraqi border region. She sees herself as a civilian member of the anti ISIS troops and wants to expose the cruelties of the Islamists. When she meets a group of women and children captured as sympathizers of the Islamic State, her view of the enemy is shaken. Touched by their existential poverty and hopelessness, she puts the camera down and tries to understand what drove these people to join the Salafist terror organisation. She is forced to acknowledge that these women and children have no intention of giving up their worldview voluntarily. And yet: the talks are not to no avail, for they reveal paths where there seemed to be only dead ends.