Little Survivors

In a landscape that radiates an idyllic innocence, Little Survivors tells the story of four Yezidi children and their experiences with IS. Their verbal testimony is linked to a "sandplay" session: a therapeutic intervention with miniatures in a sandbox. How does a child deal with this traumatic experience, how does it affect the subconscious mind and how does this influence their daily life?

Little Survivors, a documentary by Lotte Knaepen and Lisa Matthys, shows the lives of four Yezidi children in post-IS era Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). The Yezidi community was severely attacked by IS during the war in 2014, they became victims of human trafficking, separated from their families, deployed as slaves or trained as child soldiers in Raqqa. The makers follow four young survivors who have suffered trauma in different ways, but they focus on their resilience, courage and creativity.

In the background, the Belgian architects of the NGO "Maggie Program" are building a tent structure of sustainable materials that will serve as a center for trauma therapy.