Banaz: A Love Story
Banaz Mahmod was executed for the crime of love. Strangled to death at 20 years of age and stuffed in a suitcase, Mahmod was the subject of an "honor killing". This classification of murder is committed by members of the victim's own family in response to an act of perceived shame of dishonor. The feature-length documentary Banaz: A Love Story tells the harrowing story of her short life and brutal murder at the hands of those who should have cared for her the most.
At the age of ten, Mahmod moved with her family from northern Iraq to Britain. Seven years later, she wed a significantly older man in an arranged marriage. When that relationship turned threatening and violent, she took steps to end the marriage, and fell in love with a man of her own choosing in the process. Given the restrictive nature of her heritage, particularly as it pertains to even the most basic of women's rights, these acts were looked upon by several members of her family as severe offenses worthy of the ultimate punishment.
The film paints a horrific, yet deeply sensitive and human portrait of a woman full of promise, but long victimized by a culture designed to oppress her. The most devastating insights come from an older sister who testified against her own family during the trial. Insisting upon remaining nameless, living in hiding, and masked behind a burka out of fear for her own life, she recounts a stunningly beautiful woman whose greatest sin was a desire to transcend the limitations set upon her.
These limitations were inflicted early upon Mahmod, the sister recounts, as she and each of her female siblings were forced to suffer genital mutilation at the hands of their own family from an early age. She continued to suffer indifference from those who should have protected her in the weeks prior to her demise, as she sought counsel from the police on five different occasions and was only met with skepticism and inaction each time.
The winner of multiple prestigious awards, Banaz: A Love Story is justifiably difficult to watch at times, but i'’s a personal portrait that demands attention and empathy from all.
I don't like to wear my glasses when watching TV, because I want to relax. The subtitles make the film work for me, because I must keep my glasses on. I would appreciate verbal translations (voiceovers) when translations are necessary.
Those punks deserved a good month long head kicking. If they survive, strip them naked blindfold and bind them and pour chicken grease on their sex organs and pitch them into a nice dark alley in some big city where vicious and hungry rats as big as cats scurry looking for fresh meat.
If the older sister had reported the earlier attempted murder by her Father and Uncle Banaz might be alive today.
TOTALLY WITH TRUMP ON THIS ONE. IT IS PRETTY MUCH A MUSLIM THING. Dont need that kind of disrespect to woman in my country. Seems to spread like a virus. Keep muslims in the middle east #KMIME
I do feel very sorry for this poor girl but seriously, what do these women expect when they are forced to be covered from head to toe in a bin bag? Respect? Equality? And I'm willing to bet the police bitch who grassed her up to her family was one of the UK's culturally enriched police force. Pfft.
Fuk the UK police seriously especially that one listening to her cry in the room and did nothing about it 3 months! To write 1 statement!! Fuk the police. Mother was also part of it and set it all up she should’ve been killed or in jail
It's not the religion. It's the conditioning. The environment. The culture. Sure, one can have their religion, but to have logic and reasoning, anything that makes up your personality - is a different story. If you are a person of compassion, or even moral principles and you add religion to the picture, how you display your religion will be reflected through your compassion, and moral principles. Why? Because that is who you are and it will show in anything that you become involved with.
People are who they are due to conditioning and how they are raised often enough, comes with unpredictable results. If a child is brought up rapped and severely beaten, without proper guidance or help, this trauma will mold their entire life. Why? Because the basic foundation of support is not there for them so they relive the trauma instead. The same goes with religion. It's a support system, but ultimately who you are as a person defines your actions - not the religion.
As far as morals go and principles, most religions promote compassion and loving your neighbor. How can killing someone due to differences or your own ego be an act of religion when it's the very thing religion speaks out against? I don't want to talk so much about religion really, but I hope people can understand that you have to put religion aside and look at the people behind the wheel of their life. That is the only way to know for sure who you are dealing with. Separate the two and there will be less talk about the book cover and more about the story itself.
This story had me in tears,especially when they talked about how they tortured Banaz. I felt such pain and anger all at once, but I know that because this story is out - it is changing peoples lives. So I wont get wrapped up in the pain or the events, but rather the progression that has taken place that is helping others now. That is what matters now. Thank you Banaz for having such amazing courage and strength. Your light brought forth an issue that will now help many others. RIP.
Sick people! Poor little girl. :(
This documentary broke my heart. Still an issue in the Middle Eastern culture yet most of the world turns a blind eye. Feminist need to fight & bring awareness for these legitimate causes.
So sad. You can argue about whether this is about religion or culture but what you're all doing is the same - trying to put the people who did this into another category of humanity, or even deny them human status altogether. The truth is that there is only one humanity, and we are all in it. In a nutshell, it's not 'their' problem, it's our problem, a problem we are collectively burdened with. One more thing - there is no honor in killing.
This story broke my heart. That poor girl.
When bulls rush the matador or cocks strike each other with their barbed feet, we are entertained. Well, some of us are. A few of us feel for these poor creatures who are trying to kill each other (or the matador) because they know nothing else. I see Ali the same way. Of course he was and likely remains a horrible person, but I doubt that anyone has ever put the idea in his head that females are awesome, and much moreso when you can provide for them in ways they find acceptable. They have agency and make choices, and when you respect those choices, life can be pretty fantastic. I believe I am writing things that are so foreign to the culture of the Mahmod family that none of them can understand it. Can anyone close to them understand it? Are we left forever to suffer from this distinct lack of sense? Cultural norms need not be life sentences. Evil exists far more often because of stupidity than it does because of malice. Even malice tends to come from stupidity.
Stupidity itself generally comes from those who know judging that those who don't know are evil. Open up, teach them. Give them a chance to deal effectively with what is real. I guess this message is for a man with the courage and brains who knows Ali or someone who knows Ali or Banaz' father. People who leave a trail of suffering often stop doing so when they learn that there is a better way. Perhaps Banaz' brother, the one who was sent after her sister who was interviewed, will have a chance to pass on some idea of what the men in a culture that treats women like domestic animals are missing out on.
A heartbreaking documentary! The world is a complicated place and people's beliefs and understandings often demolish love and life - two major fundamentals. The story of Benaz will never be forgotten, but it is very likely to become the story of many other women...
You feel disgusted and tremendous sadness. Why do some people hate "love"?
Hopefully the prison guards shared the reason those guys are in prison with the other prisoners, for gang raping and murdering their own cousin, and that they get raped daily in prison by bull queers.
It is the fault of the culture, but the culture is enabled by the religion. To deny that it is related to the religion is to embrace ignorance, and shed light on the degree of your own indoctrination into the religion of hatred.
Very good documentary. What a sad state of events. Just as Western culture has evolved from witch hunts and burnings, somehow these other archaic cultures need to evolve to modern times.
We hate this stupid barbaric tribal culture of Saudi-Arabia,Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Egypt and Somalia etc. This culture does not match with the Quran and Hadith. These tribal murderers are brutal, merciless, ferocious and uneducated like beast. As a Muslim, I hate them and their activities.
I refuse to see the film...because I imagine it more vividly then a film. I am a creative, sensitive woman...empathetic as a teacher to children...and I can put myself into this good woman's life and feel her feelings. I am currently fighting the huge battle of pedophilia in the world....then I will tackle parental abuse by children. There are so many fights I cannot count.... Meantime I tell children and women never to go to the police on issues where their life is in danger. I tell them to go to friends, loving family members...arrange escape, hiding, etc. I have seen too much incompetence, corruption and mental illness in law enforcement and the judicial. I wish I had been in this woman's life...I would have done anything possible to help her. I always say..when there is a murder of a human life..that soul flies into a newborn child's spirit...and begins again...
My emotions are so strong that I do not know what to write.
I cried and cried.
I could not believe that the honor of the family was more important than human nobility that could be seen in the eyes of this beautiful woman. Great shame and responsibility falls on the official state institutions for failing to recognize her cry for help.
The decision makers in this case, for example the police interviewing Banaz in her family home in front of her family, should be executed. I mean the girl under all this pressure, and fear, only increased.
it has nothing to do with religion , this is culture issues. Islam is the religion of humanity and it has been wrongly practiced by ignorant people
I like the way you think MusicMan
Big shout out to the real men who watched this documentary and were touched by it and from the comments it pissed them off....Right on Papi's
I totally agree with Michel, please never shut up keep yelling, cursing insulting dude, I am right behind you. Every country says including sh*tty England, " oh my god so sad, what monsters" but this happened in the U.K, not in Iraq. WHY DIDN'T THE U.K SAVE HER??? NOW THEY MAKE A DOCUMENTARY AND GET AWARDS FOR THESE SAD STORIES, WHICH BROUGHT A LOT OF MONEY BUT THIS GIRL IS STILL DEAD.....That's what we do we make money off people's miseries and deaths with their books, documentaries, movies, interviews and nothing goes to the cause...All the money made on this should have gone to her sister the one that did not give a **** and said "see ya wouldn't wanna be ya" You can tell she loved her sister and was helpless...This was ****** up England, she warned you over and over and gave descriptions, names, what else did you want? You protect gangsters in programs when they snitch and you could not save this girl who came to you with her life and heart in her hand??? Like this id**t she just sits there giving this girl awkward silences and I'll let you know what I can do, st*pid b*tch....If this was not racism on England's part what is....They killed her too! and now they want to make excuses those racist pigs. MY GOD, PURE RACISM...BOY is Karma gonna have a ball with them, all that could have done something but didn't...No one listened. lack of training you piece of ****?? no pure good ole racism, call it for what it is...If I was president I would close the borders to the middle east including Isreal with their arrogant, chosen one's attitudes and stop worrying about Mexican. I would only let in the abused women there, not any men. I don't care how this sounds, it's my opinion right now...