What the wind took away

The documentary What the Wind Took Away, produced by Helin Celik and Martin Klingenböck, thematises the fate of the religious minority of the Yazidi who especially in their area of settlement of northern Iraq have become stigmatized as “infidels” and therefore victims of persecution and massacres by the so-called Islamic State which leaves them no choice but to flee. This Austrian production gives an insight into the lives of two families expelled from their homes, ending up in one of the emergency shelters in the neighbouring country of Turkey. The two young women talk about the richness of their previous lives, their dangerous flight over the mountains, and the grinding everyday life of a refugee, but between the lines they also indicate their own position as women in a devoutly religious community.

Helin Celik is a theater artist with Kurdish roots who was born in Turkey in 1991. She holds a diploma in degree in Theatre and has specialized in Theatre of the Oppressed. She is passionate about different aspects of humans and their interaction within past and present societies. As a woman being born and brought up in a country in Middle East where issues involving womens´status are pretty different from anywhere in the West helped her discovering that her interests are particularly focused on institutional oppression and gender problematic in eastern countries. Helin Celik has directing and screenwriting experience in several short movies. What The Wind Took Away is her first feature-length documentary.

Martin Klingenböck Completed university studies covering the areas of Multimedia and Digital Television in Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague. After several years of working full-time as a cinematographer in Munich, Germany, in 2012 he founded his own production company, Klingenböck Filmproduktion, and has since then worked as a free-lance photographer and filmmaker focussing on documentaries. Martin Klingenböck has built a considerable portfolio of national as well as international short and image films; What the Wind Took Away is his second long film on the topic of refugees after Last Shelter (2015).

Credits

Countries & year of production: Austria, Turkey; 2017
Length: 75 minutes
Idea: Helin Celik
Script: Helin Celik, Martin Klingenböck
Producers: Martin Klingenböck, Helin Celik
Cinematography: Martin Klingenböck, Deniz Blazeg
Dramaturgy & Editing: Ascan Breuer, Dokumentarisches Labor
Dramaturgical Advice: Dieter Pichler
Cast: Hedil, Ismael, Mayk, Kheri, Eween Naam, Saad, Maks, Fahed, Waed, Suhayep and Wahida, Delwin, Pakiza, …
Sound Design: Roumen Dimitrov, Adriana Milanova
Music & Sound Mixing: Roumen Dimitrov
Translation: Ibrahim Abbas, Hayfa Kahraman, Delras Permous
German subtitles: Ascan Breuer, Martin Klingenböck, Stefania Schenk Vitale
English subtitles: Stefania Schenk Vitale, Helin Celik
Post Production
Assistants:
Armin Kirchner, Berta Güerre, Simone Hart, Julia Schmidt
Color Grading: Daniel Hollerweger
Retouching / VFX: Micha Elias Pichlkastner
Graphic Design: David Einwaller
DCP Authoring: Johannes Gierlinger
Production Company: Klingenböck Filmproduktion