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Banaz: An Honour Killing

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Banaz was brutally murdered by her family in 2006 in an honour killing, the film tells Banaz’s story and the story of the police team that didn’t give up on her case and brought her killers to justice

This is a documentary film chronicling in close-up an act of overwhelming horror - the brutal honour killing of Banaz Mahmod, a young British woman in suburban London in 2006, killed and "disappeared" by her own Kurdish family, with the agreement and help of a large section of her own community, because she tried to choose a life for herself. 

But it is also a story of love... 

Of Banaz, whose relationship with Rahmat put her life in danger. Tt was her video message from beyond the grave which convicted her father and uncle of the murder she feared would happen 

Of Bekhal, a young woman of incredible spirit and bravery, whose love for her murdered sister gave her the strength to testify against her own family and community - bringing justice to Banaz but consigning her to a life forever lived in hiding 

Of Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Goode, the senior Scotland Yard detective, who says she came to love Banaz beyond the grave. It was Caroline's dedication and passion which drove her on, finding her body against all the odds, laying her to rest, and relentlessly pursuing her killers, even to Iraq. 

And Deeyah, international music artist turned activist and filmmaker, who has herself been subject to honour related abuse and threat. It was Deeyah's love for the story, for Banaz, for Bekhal and for Caroline, and for raising awareness for the issue of honour killing, which has driven her to spend three years making this harrowing and deeply emotional film, running out of funding long ago, but forming an intimate bond with all the key players, which plays out on screen in scenes of astonishingly confessional testimony 

Above all the film is an act of remembrance, an act of recovery of Banaz, a woman whom her own family tried to erase from the earth, but who is set to become a worldwide symbol in the fight to overcome oppression and outdated and horrific cultural practices, practices which claim the lives of thousands of other women like Banaz every year.

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