Patricio Galvez - Still from Children of the Enemy
CHILDREN OF THE ENEMY
WORLD PREMIERE CPH:DOX APRIL 2021
The radicalization of Patricio Galvez's daughter Amanda Gonzales led her to move to Syria in 2014 to join the terrorist group ISIS. She moved together with her husband Michael Skråmo, who became a high profile ISIS-warrior recruiting for the terrorist group through social media. The couple brought their four small children with them to Raqqa and had three more children there.
Both Amanda and Michael were killed in the beginning of 2019 in the final battles. They left behind their seven children aged 1-8 years old. The children were taken to the al-Hol detention camp in northern Syria, which is largely populated by women and children who surrendered after IS was defeated. With its 70.000 inhabitants, of which many are children, it vibrates with desperation and sorrow. The conditions are life-threatening. Four to five children die every day. The Swedish government has for a couple of years known that Swedish children are stuck in Kurdish camps, but not acted.
At home in Gothenburg, Sweden, the children's grandfather Patricio Galvez is becoming increasingly desperate. His repeated attempts to persuade his daughter to leave the war zone in Syria failed. Now both she and Michael Skråmo are dead and the children are in a refugee camp under terrible circumstances. He decides to go down to Erbil in northern Iraq to continue his fight for bringing the children home.
Gorki Glaser-Müller joined Patricio on his journey, both as a filmmaker and friend. They stay in the same hotel room and Gorki follows every step Patricio takes. He documents the uncertainty, the bureaucracy, the political negotiations, the frustration, guilt and despair with his camera- everything that Patricio experiences that one does not see in the media reports. As a friend, Gorki also has an in-depth access to the story of Patricio's daughter's conversion and how it affected the family. This is a journey of a father who lost his daughter- and his way to redemption. The documentary premieres in mid-2021.
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