Profeti
PROPHETS is the story of an encounter and a confrontation between Sara, an independent Italian journalist who was kidnapped in Syria by ISIS while she was working on a war news report in 2015, and Nur, the young foreign fighter, wife to a soldier of the Caliphate who holds Sara in custody in a building located in the middle of a training camp. Nur’s strong will to proselytize, together with the strict orders of the leader of the camp, will unfold into an attempt to convert Sara and make her join Islamic extremism.
Summary
“Profeti” (2023) follows Sara, an independent Italian journalist abducted by ISIS in Syria in 2015 while covering the war. Held in a building inside a militant training camp, she is isolated from the outside world and subjected to the rules of the organization that controls her fate. Her principal interlocutor is Nur, a young foreign fighter and the wife of a soldier in the Caliphate, who has been tasked with watching over her. As Nur attempts to persuade Sara to accept the group’s extremist ideology, their captivity becomes an intense psychological and moral confrontation. Sara resists being reduced to a prisoner or a symbol, relying on her intelligence, professional convictions, and determination to preserve her identity. Nur, meanwhile, is presented not simply as an agent of fanaticism but as a young woman shaped by belief, indoctrination, and her own need to find purpose within a violent system. Their exchanges reveal both the force of ideological persuasion and the human uncertainties beneath rigid convictions. Set against the claustrophobic environment of the camp, the film explores the nature of faith, radicalization, and propaganda, while examining how people construct identity under conditions of fear and coercion. It also considers the vulnerability and resilience of women living within systems that claim to speak for them. Rather than treating the conflict as a simple clash between good and evil, “Profeti” focuses on the uneasy space between conviction and manipulation, victimhood and complicity, and the possibility of maintaining one’s freedom of thought when every aspect of life is controlled.
