“If I find out that you were in ISIS I will kill you with my own hands.”
Hunting ISIS
When the city of Mosul in Iraq was captured by ISIS two and a half years ago, 1st Battalion, a special unit of Iraq’s Golden Division, spearheaded a mission to reclaim the city.
Embedded with the special forces soldiers from the 1st Battalion, French cameraman Olivier Sarbil spent six weeks filming on the front line.
Hunting ISIS follows the dramatic journey of the soldiers in Sarbil’s unit as they push deeper and deeper into the war-torn city. They face terrifying and fierce resistance on a daily basis from suicide bombers and snipers that surround the city. The film shows the challenges the soldiers face as they hunt for the ISIS fighters who are hiding among the local population, and provides an intimate view of the brutal battle through the eyes of the men who are fighting to free Iraq.
For the C4 News version of this film, The Battle for Mosul, Olivier won a One World Media Award and two Prix Bayeux.