To escape a forced marriage, 19-year-old Hala finds shelter across the Euphrates River with the Kurdish Women’s Army. As she learns how to fight, she is inspired by the promise of liberating more women. When the Kurdish military liberates her hometown from ISIS, she returns there as a police officer to protect other vulnerable women. Hala is ready to fulfill her biggest dream: to free her younger sisters from the hands of their father.
Kilian studied visual communication, art and media at the University of Art and Film in Berlin as well as cinematography at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and at the ISA in Havana, Cuba. She works as a director, cinematographer and producer with her own production company Pink Shadow Films. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER is her directorial debut.
