Hogir Hirori: Last News

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent“Sabaya” producer Antonio Russo Merenda has responded to a bombshell article published on Monday in The New York Times claiming that many Yazidi women portrayed in the Sundance prize-winning documentary never agreed to be in the film.Merenda issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that he and director Hogir Hirori “received written, verbal or filmed consent from everyone who appears” in “Sabaya,” as well as from the legal guardian of the young girl who is featured in the film.Merenda also provided statements from one of the main female protagonista of “Sabaya,” as well as from a Syrian Kurdish filmmaker who worked with Hirori.

Filmmakers behind the documentary Sabaya are rebutting a published report claiming they failed to properly obtain consent from some of the victims of sexual enslavement who appear in the award-winning film, about Yazidi women and girls seized by ISIS fighters in Iraq.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaMTV Documentary Films has acquired North American rights to “Sabaya,” the story of volunteers of the Yazidi Home Center, who risk their lives in order to save women and girls held by ISIS as sex slaves.The film received a directing award for world cinema documentary when it premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “Sabaya” is directed and produced by Stockholm-based filmmaker Hogir Hirori and also produced by Antonio Russo Merenda.