Zaynê Akyol follows female PKK fighters in the Kurdish territories of Iraq and Syria to take a nuanced look at the guerrilla war. In between focused preparations for their missions against Isis the women take time for personal hygiene, laugh and celebrate exuberantly with their male comrades.

The protagonists, always at the centre of the frame, talk openly about their fears and ideals. They have taken a life decision – out of conviction. But one that also brings grief.

Lina Dinkla

Work: people who are no more than human capital behind shining panels where no personal coffee cup (please go to the Coffee Point for this) is left (the non-territorial workplace). Futuristic buildings in which nothing is meant to look like work and where human resources deliver task-oriented performances at meeting points, after having been informed by the management of their daily key performance indicators, adjusted to their skill set and the team code. “I agree with you completely”, says the manager trained in product stewardship commitment and discipline to the employee whose core data and talent assessment – evaluated in an assessment centre where he was screened and x-rayed down to his central cortex – are stored as charts in the company’s intranet.
It may sound like a dark science fiction vision, but it’s social reality. Carmen Losman competently illustrates a rather abstract subject with precisely chosen camera positions, in settings that look as cool and contrived as the world they describe, with a soundtrack where the permanent management speak is rarely interrupted by Industrial Electronic Sounds or occasionally turned off. You leave this film frozen to the core. But if joy had been the subject, the film would not have gotten more than a measly three on the management assessment scale.
– Grit Lemke (DOK Leipzig Catalogue 2011)