Sisters in Arms: why was the film controversial when it was released?

It may be sad to say, but war is the basis of a good number of films, often memorable. It must be said that there is unfortunately no shortage of real conflicts to “illustrate”. The First World War was thus the opportunity for a technical tour de force for Sam Mendes in his impressive 1917. The second has undoubtedly generated the most feature films, with its numerous feats of arms, such as the Landing, rendered in a striking manner in We have to save the soldier Ryan by Steven Spielberg. More surprising is the horror film option, with Overlord, a monster film at the heart of the conflict. And then there is of course the Vietnam War and its many masterpieces, like Apocalypse Nowa monument to nightmarish filming, or Platoonbased on the personal memories of its director, Oliver Stone.

The war in Syria, already at the center of several films and series

More recent and no less dramatic is the conflict in Syria, the terrible images of which are still remembered. Notably with the death of France 2 journalist Gilles Jacquier, killed in 2012 while covering the fighting. A war which, like all the others, inspired the screenwriters. So the series No Man’s Land, broadcast in 2020 on Arte, follows the Kurdish YPJ troops. An editorial favorite, which was not filmed on location, but in Morocco for security reasons. Presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019, For Sama, diary of a Syrian mother is a shocking work and a testimony so as not to forget.

What controversy surrounded the release of Sisters in Arms by Caroline Fourest?

Caroline Fourest, too, looked into this terrible war. The journalist is known for not keeping her tongue in her pocket. In 2015, she was at the heart of a skirmish with Aymeric Caron, before some tensions on the sets of Audrey Crespo-Mara that occurred two years later. In October 2019, she signed Sisters in Arms, a war film that follows a young Yazidi woman who goes to fight alongside Kurdish forces after escaping the troops of the Islamic State. A sometimes clumsy film but which has the merit of putting these fighters in the light, and which was at the center of a controversy during its theatrical release. A collective of French-speaking Kurdish fighters criticized the director for distorting reality for the benefit of her feminist vision, with heroines who drink and flirt. To which the interested party responded on RMC : “I am a filmmaker, I make a cinema film, certainly not a tract. What interests me is human matter. Yes when we fight, it happens that we love, that we drink, that n It doesn’t matter. I’m making a fiction film.” Sisters in Arms is broadcast this Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2.