The Return

What can you say to people who tell terrifying, heartrending stories about what happened to them when members of IS came to their homes? How do you respond to fathers who saw their daughters taken away, to children whose mothers were shot to death before their eyes? There is very little you can say, but a nurse named Shilan takes the time to listen to these people and to help them where she can. She is a young Kurdish woman working as a volunteer for a Swedish hospital in a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. Here, more than 20,000 Yezidis are living in tents in the mud. Each tent houses a story of loss, violence and hardship. When confronted by a young woman who refuses all contact with the outside world and won’t eat, Shilan takes action. In the conversations she has with the traumatized woman, Shilan’s own story gradually takes shape. This is a portrait of perseverance in the midst of insurmountable grief.