Other Side of the River, The

Other Side of the River, The

DIRECTED BY: Antonia Kilian COUNTRY: Germany, Finland YEAR: 2021 SPOKEN LANGUAGE(S): Arabic, German, Kurdish SUBTITLES: English, German RUNNING TIME: 92 min

SECTION: International Forum

SCREENINGS

SYNOPSIS
In order to avoid a forced marriage, 19-year-old Hala finds shelter across the Euphrates, at the Kurdish Female Military. While learning how to fight, she gets inspired by the promise of freeing more women. When the Kurdish military liberates her hometown from ISIS, she returns there as a policewoman authorised to protect other vulnerable women. Hala finds herself ready to fulfil her greatest dream: to free her younger sisters from her father’s hand.Τhe threat of a marriage and the brutal stories of female oppression lead women to the other side of the river. They are trained in a strict military style, taught that men are the enemy. But is there freedom to be found between holding a gun against the patriarchic society or be deprived of the possibility to love?

BIOGRAPHY
Antonia Kilian is a director, cinematographer and producer. She studied Visual Communication as well as Art and Media at the Berlin University of Arts and Cinematography in Film University in Potsdam Babelsberg and at the ISA in Havana, Cuba. In this time she worked as DoP for several films, both fiction and documentary that run on numerous festivals and created video installations and directed documentary shorts. Her directorial debut THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER she shot for more than one year in North East Syria. Since 2018 she is based between Kassel and Berlin and runs her own production company Pink Shadow Films.

FILMOGRAPHY
10 Years (2011), Silent Night (2014), Welcome to Europe (2016), The Other Side of the River (2021)

SCRIPT: Antonia Kilian, Guevara Namer, Arash Asadi PRODUCER: Frank Müller, Antonia Kilian, Merja Ritola, Guevara Namer CINEMATOGRAPHY: Antonia Kilian EDITOR: Arash Asadi SCORE: Shkoon CAST: Hala Mustafa, Sosan Mustafa

WEBSITE: www.theothersideoftheriver.com

PRODUCTION COMPANY: Doppelplusultra (mail@doppelplusultra.de), Greenlit Productions, Pink Shadow Films WORLD SALES: Syndicado Film Sales (info@syndicado.com) GERMAN DISTRIBUTOR: JIP Film & Verleih (info@jip-film.com)