Handful of Ash Synopsis
Iraqi-Kurdish women and girls recall their traumatic experiences with genital mutilation, a practice that only persists where custom goes unquestioned and with detrimental consequence to the well-being of an entire society.
Handful of Ash was an official selection of the 2014 WVN Online Film Festival.
About the Filmmaker
Since 1998, Nabaz Ahmad has worked as a screenplay writer, assistant director and director for Kurdish film productions and TV stations. In 2001, he made his first short movie. Handful of Ash is his first documentary.
More from the Filmmaker
A Handful of Ash documents the stories of women and female genital mutilation in Kurdish northern Iraq. The movie evolved from the work of the relief organization WADI, which combats female genital mutilation in northern Iraq. To raise awareness in European publics to the problem of FGM in Iraqi-Kurdistan, filmmaker Nabaz Ahmad created a documentary, in which Kurdish women vividly describe their experiences. The movie approaches the subject respectfully and carefully, with expressive pictures of a simple life in a remote landscape. The sensitive and carefully observing camera work enables one to look at the suffering, which emerges without sensational and bloody scenes. The movie was shown at various film festivals.
