Sabaya
MTV Documentary Films | Release Date: July 30, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatAlex SavelievJun 12, 2021
With unparalleled verisimilitude, Hirori captures both the helplessness and the resolve it takes to see past it, to hold on to a glimmer of hope, faint as it may be. Sabaya will leave you scarred, its images scorched forever into your mind. Read full review
100
CineVueMatthew AndersonJun 12, 2021
Sabaya does not shy away from the horrendous circumstances it finds, exhibiting bitterly raw emotion, fear and heartbreak very frankly. Read full review
100
IndieWireChristian BlauveltJun 12, 2021
There are many times in Hogir Hirori’s Sabaya, an anxiety-filled potboiler of a documentary about the fight to rescue enslaved girls from ISIS, where one might wonder how they pulled it off. That feeling is quickly followed by relief that they did. Read full review
91
The Film StageIsaac FeldbergJun 12, 2021
Tense and gripping, Hogir Hirori’s documentary Sabaya never positions itself as a thriller. There’s no need. Barring a few cards of scene-setting exposition, this vital dispatch embeds viewers with a rescue operation in the Middle East, and does so with a degree of first-person access that’s not just instantly bold: it’s nerve-janglingly scary. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKimber MyersAug 1, 2021
With Sabaya, we witness documentary filmmaking at its boldest; we find hope in seeing not only the triumphs of the Yazidi Home Center but also what the medium can do. Read full review
90
The New York TimesDevika GirishJul 29, 2021
Mahmud and Ziyad, volunteers at the Yazidi Home Center in Syria, will make several more such trips over the course of the film, and hundreds more after the cameras stop rolling. Their task is enormous, and it demands a stoicism that Hirori’s intrepid, immersive filmmaking mirrors. Read full review
90
Screen DailyWendy IdeJun 12, 2021
Remarkable access and nerves of steel (on the part of both the subjects and of filmmaker Hogir Hirori) makes for a riveting documentary which is as tense as it is revealing. Read full review
90
VarietyJessica KiangJun 12, 2021
Sabaya is remarkable not least for how cleanly Hirori excises himself from it, careful to not get in between the viewer and these devastating stories with their 10 different flavors of heroism. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyJul 30, 2021
There is so much earth-shattering bravery on display in the miraculous Sabaya that you wonder how the Swedish-Kurdish director Hogir Hirori managed to pull off a documentary that avoids showy, predictable notes of brouhaha throughout. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansAug 22, 2021
[A] sensitive, frequently harrowing observational documentary. Read full review
80
The GuardianPhuong LeAug 19, 2021
The first 20 minutes of Hogir Hirori’s extraordinary documentary has the beat of a gripping thriller, full of hushed voices, car chases, and the terrifying sounds of gunfight. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterInkoo KangJun 12, 2021
With the risks to both the filmmaker and his subjects on full display, it’s an impressively exciting and strikingly novel approach in chronicling a humanitarian crisis that has yet to receive its due. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 4, 2021
As absorbing and illuminating as Sabaya is — and as courageous as it is as an act of filmmaking — the viewer can’t escape the fact that it’s men who have taken these women hostage, men who are rescuing them and men to whom they are returning, as long as they obey their conditions and patriarchal codes. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineMark JenkinsJul 26, 2021
The film’s terseness could make it too cryptic for some, but that doesn’t blunt the impact of its most visceral or tender moments. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubCarlos AguilarJul 28, 2021
As a journalistic depiction of the rescue operations as they happen, Sabaya brims with heart-pounding tension and immediacy. But given the access obtained and Hirori’s connection to the people and the land where this grim chapter in modern history is unfolding, the superficial handling of pivotal aspects of the story is disappointing. Read full review
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