International Volunteers of the Rojava Revolution

5.0 International Volunteers of the Rojava Revolution

2019, 35 m

The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria is an autonomous enclave experimenting with a radical form of democracy called Democratic Confederalism. The multicultural pluralistic system is centered around Direct Democracy, Women’s Liberation, and ecology. In 2019, Unicorn Riot interviewed three New Yorkers who volunteered to fight alongside the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS and Turkey. The documentary features their oral accounts overlaid with contributed footage from anonymous sources to bring you a first-person point of view of what happened to fighters as they held the front line in defense of Rojava, an autonomous zone in northern Syria. The three men share their perspectives of what they witnessed while playing a small role in the Syrian Civil War as international volunteers for the YPG.