Das Milan-Protokoll

We are in Northern Iraq, in the border region close to Syria, between Dohuk, Sinjar and Mosul. Topographically this is a highly dangerous area. The regional administration, controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, rules around the city of Dohuk in collaboration with US and German allied forces. Towards the Southeast lies Mosul, controlled by the Salafist-jihadist Islamic State, with their allies, Sunnite leaders and former officers of Hussein’s regime. Towards the west, lie Kurdish regions in Northern Syria, controlled by the Democratic Union Party, allied to the PKK. German medical doctor Martina Abramski works in these borderlands. She treats the injured regardless of faith or origin – until she is abducted by a Sunnite group. The doctor, who is fluent in Arabic, and has been able to move around the region self-confidently and autonomously thus far, now finds herself trapped between all borders. So who abducted her? Was it even the Islamic State? The group’s leader Omar wants to use her to blackmail competitor Bassam. While negotiations about her release are going on, a fight about belief systems flares up between Martina and her very young jailor, who turns out to be German. Jibrail, a stand-in for Omar, outs himself as a western secret agent and asks Martina to work with him. Her situation becomes increasingly hard to assess. Who is friend and who is foe? What is truth and what is lie? It is no longer possible to distinguish between memory and misinformation, nightmare and actual experiences. The narrative perspective of this aesthetically directed, and, in almost Brechtian severity, political and tense arthouse-thriller is retrospective. Once liberated, Martina sits opposite a German BND agent in Dohuk. Though the setting is obviously different, his videoed interrogation of her is powerfully reminiscent of her earlier interrogations by her abductors. (Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg)