Watching: Anna: The Woman Who Went to Fight ISIS

Overview

In 2017, 25-year-old Anna Campbell from Lewes in East Sussex travelled in secret to northern Syria. She was heading for Rojava, the Kurdish territory in the north of the country. In the midst of the civil war in Syria, a fledgling feminist democracy had been established but almost immediately came under threat from the so-called Islamic State. Just eight months after arriving and with no military background, Anna went to the front line to fight with Kurdish YPJ. A month later she was killed by a Turkish air strike. With access to her diary and videos filmed while she was there, this film explores what motivated Anna to leave and how her family make sense of the tragic consequences.