Based, unfortunately, on real events, The Dark Wind follows the story of Pero and Reko, members of the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq, who are a loving couple engaged to be married. Reko is a security guard at a U.S. oilfield. In August 2014, Islamic State fighters invaded the Yazidi region, murdering the men and older women and kidnapping the younger ones. In the film, Pero is taken away and sold to the highest bidder in a slave market. Reko risks his own life to find Pero and save her. With the aid of female fighters of the Kurdish resistance, Reko finds Pero and brings her home, which, by this time, is a large refugee camp.
Pero is utterly traumatized, and even when her family and Reko appear to coax her back to a fragile state of comfort, she has flashbacks that leave her screaming. Then she discovers that she’s pregnant as a result of rape. Her family brings her to Yazidi religious leaders, who cleanse her spiritually and declare her an acceptable member of the community. But Rezo’s father considers Pero shameful, damaged goods and refuses to allow his son to marry her. This puts Rezo in the position of either rejecting his cultural tradition of following your father’s orders or continuing to carry out his plan to marry Pero.
Those who want to know more about the real Yazidi survivors of the Islamic State sex trade should check out The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad; The Girl Who Escaped ISIS: This Is My Story by Farida Khalaf and With Ash on Their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State by Cathy Otten.
