Captive (2021)

• 67%
• 2021
• Documentary
• Mellissa Fung

Zara, Asma'u, and Gambo escaped Boko Haram's brutal war in northeastern Nigeria after being held captive by the terror group. Kidnapped as girls, they are now living with the aftermath of trauma. The girls grapple with the physical, psychological, and social scars of abduction, rape and violence, only to find themselves marked by stigma, and unwelcome when they finally return to their own communities. Fung discovers these three girls still confronting trauma, at first with little hope. They are only three of the thousands of other girls who have suffered the same fate, then silenced and abandoned by a society where psychological wounds are not spoken of, and where there is just too much conflict, poverty and pain for their trauma to stand out. As writer/director Mellissa Fung - herself a survivor of captivity by terrorists in Afghanistan - travels to northeastern Nigeria to meet the girls, she discovers a rich community of women helping women, survivors holding their own village "therapy sessions", a female hunter leading a vigilante group in pursuit of the terrorists, and a psychologist building schools and programs to rehabilitate girl abductees. Together they provide a reason to hope, a way to heal, and a message that girls and women who have suffered so much, have the strength, power and will to change their future.