Documentary about women in Rojava | »Despite everything«: No one has to, everyone wants to

It's as if a person who has lived in a cave for decades is seeing daylight for the first time. This is how the old woman, harvesting parsley in the field with her large, heavy hands, tells of the time when ISIS was repulsed in Kobanê. For years, she hadn't left her house, her children with her. What a liberation it was, to finally feel a small but essential form of freedom again. She now lives with other women in the self-governing village of Jinwar (Kurdish for "Land of Women"), west of Dirbêsiyê in northern Syria. A place of longing for Kurdish and Arab women, but also for women around the world who have suffered and obeyed enough. Here, in a collectively organized community, they run a farm, a bakery, a school, and a small clinic with a medicinal herb garden. "We're breaking the clichés," one exclaims as she tinkers with the tractor.

Filmmaker Robert Krieg, who has been filming grassroots democratic initiatives in the Middle East for more than 40 years, visited this village and the entire Rojava region for his new documentary "Despite All That" to show women who, after destruction and massive oppression, have achieved the almost impossible: self-empowerment and healing.

In Western societies, for which the only attribute that seems to apply is disruptive, such forms of life based on solidarity are simply unreal, seeming like a story from Mars.

We meet the tech-savvy Argin, who takes care of the maintenance of the heavy agricultural machinery; the artisan Jehan, who creates magnificently decorated picture frames; the single mother Delal; the versatile Sidan; the taekwondo instructor Ghoufran; and the deaf silk embroiderer Hiba. All of them seem exhausted and strained at times. Self-organization, distancing themselves from patriarchal conventions, and the constant courage to be seen as outsiders are hard work. But they all talk about how happy they are since living in freedom. In addition to the village of Jinwar, the film also presents other women's projects and their self-organized lives: a multi-religious food delivery service for working women, a seamstress, an artist, and a woman who runs a museum of Kurdish art and spreads her message of diversity and strength through TikTok and Facebook videos. “With principles and common sense, we can achieve anything here,” says Sidan from Jinwar in one scene, and this spirit permeates the entire film.

What we don't see are men. Except perhaps among the children the women bring to the village. Men emerge as oppressors, violent people, who imprison their wives and take their children away from them. Patriarchy in all its ugliness. Perhaps only from this perspective can we truly understand what freedom, what this village or a self-determined life in the region means to the women. And perhaps only from this experience of oppression can we understand why the community in Jinwar functions at all. Robert Krieg's film otherwise says relatively little about this. We don't learn about the boundaries of a community founded on self-organization and solidarity. Who is accepted and who isn't? If everyone is welcome here, what rules are there? What happens if you don't follow them?

"Despite everything" doesn't want to know any of this. But somehow it would also have been part of the truth. Everything is almost too good to believe that a coexistence based on self-organization can get along so completely without conflict. The film never mentions any disagreement within the women's community. At one of the bi-weekly meetings, an older woman suggests planting chickpeas and lentils soon. There is no discussion about whether this is economical or in any way sensible; instead, it is agreed that it will be implemented soon. Can everything really be so trouble-free? But perhaps that is also a question one can only ask oneself if one has a tendency to take oneself too seriously.

For the women, it's about creating something out of nothing, out of war, destruction, and their own strength, which will enable them to live a self-determined life. It's about the self-confidence to be able to make it if everyone pitches in. That's key. Everyone is involved; no one harbors vanity or egoism, or thinks they're too good for anything. That's unaffordable here. Everyone does what they can; no one has to, but everyone wants to. That's what Robert Krieg wants to show, and he succeeds impressively. In Western societies, which seem to be described only as disruptive, such ways of life based on solidarity are simply unreal, like a story from Mars—and as if we in the West have nothing to do with it. As if it were simply impossible to agree on mutual consideration, solidarity, fairness, and support. Yet in Rojava, these are the same people with the same needs, fears, and ideas of a good life. Anyone who no longer believes in anything might think that you have to shoot everything down and take away people's dignity in order to understand this.

The gaps remain. What has happened to the region since the Islamic militia HTS took over Syria? What plans does the Turkish government have? The region's autonomy has always been fragile.

The film is a huge exclamation mark, as the title suggests. At the end, a woman says that the young people who succeed in their education here leave the village to pursue true success elsewhere. How can anyone think we have nothing to do with all of this?

"Despite All," Germany 2025. Directed by Robert Krieg. 90 minutes, Release: June 12