The Virgin And Child

The Virgin And Child is an uncompromising feature drama that follows Avesta, a young Kurdish-Yazidi woman and ISIS survivor, whose life is violently ruptured when she is abducted and sold into sexual slavery to a Belgian jihadist, Mohamed Redouane. After becoming pregnant, Avesta escapes and eventually reaches Brussels as a refugee, driven by a singular resolve: to force the man who enslaved her to face justice. She does not want the child conceived through violence yet carries it to term as living evidence of the crime committed against her.

Stylistically grounded in an austere direct-cinema aesthetic, the film rejects melodrama in favour of close observation, restraint, and emotional proximity. This approach foregrounds Avesta’s physical presence and everyday gestures, allowing trauma to emerge through duration, silence, and repetition rather than explicit depiction.

On a sociological level, the film situates Avesta’s personal story within the systematic exploitation of the female body practiced by ISIS, particularly against Yazidi women, whose enslavement functioned as both ideological terror and economic strategy. By focusing on the afterlife of this violence – its legal, bodily, and psychological consequences – the film exposes the structural conditions that continue to marginalize survivors long after escape.

Director: Berivan Binevsa. Countries: Belgium, France, Iraq. Released: 2024. Length: 80 min. Cast: Laëtitia Eïdo, Barbara Sarafian, Roda Fawaz. Format: DCP. Language: French, Kurdish, Arabic, English, and Dutch.