Yazidi genocide survivor-turned-global advocate Nadia Murad, the subject of Alexandria Bombach’s documentary ON HER SHOULDERS, was announced today as the recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.
A deeply moving documentary portrait, ON HER SHOULDERS was the winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Documentary Directing Award and has won awards at some of the world’s top film festivals. It will open on Friday, October 19 at New York’s Village East Cinemas, followed by Los Angeles on October 24, with a national rollout to follow.
Twenty-three-year-old Nadia Murad’s life is a dizzying array of important undertakings—from giving testimony before the U.N. to visiting refugee camps to soul-bearing media interviews and one-on-one meetings with top government officials. With deep compassion and a formal precision and elegance that matches Nadia’s calm and steely demeanor, director Alexandria Bombach (who also shot and edited the film) follows this strong-willed young woman, who survived the 2014 genocide of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq and escaped sexual slavery at the hands of ISIS to become a relentless beacon of hope for her people, even when at times she longs to lay aside this monumental burden and simply have an ordinary life.
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