''Sabaya'' is an 2021 Swedish documentary film, directed, shot and edited by Hogir Hirori. It follows a group who risk their lives to save sex slaves held captive by

ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

in Al-Hawl, Syria. It had its world premiere at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

on 30 January 2021.

Synopsis

The film follows a group into Syria's Al-Hawl, the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, as they risk their lives to save women being held by ISIS as abducted sex slaves.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

on 30 January 2021. Shortly after, MTV Documentary Films acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film. It also screened at CPH:DOX on 22 April 2021. The film has been awarded the Best Documentary Feature Film for the 14th edition of the Asian Pacific Screen Awards in 2021. It is scheduled to be released in the United States on 30 July 2021.

Reception

''Sabaya'' received positive reviews from film critics. It holds a 100% approval rating on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 41 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.70/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Sabaya'' presents a scary and sobering look at human suffering -- and the efforts of those dedicated to ending it." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film holds a rating of 86 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". On May 24, 2022 Swedish online magazine Kvartal published an investigation accusing the documentary of having faked scenes and manipulated characters.

References

External links

* * * {{Metacritic film * https://kvartal.se/artiklar/hjaltar-i-prisad-svt-dokumentar-stal-barn/ 2021 films 2021 documentary films Swedish documentary films Films about sexual abuse Documentary films about violence against women MTV Films films