Sideways World

Denis Cuspert, aka Deso Dogg, became notorious for joining the Islamic State, but this film turns the lens elsewhere: to German and international civilians fighting terror militias in northern Syria. As Germany deploys Tornado jets and supplies weapons abroad, volunteers on the ground take up arms alongside Kurdish commandos to stop IS and build an alternative society based on gender equality, religious freedom, and the rejection of the death penalty. Journalist Sebastian Weiss embeds near the front line, meeting ex-soldiers, social workers, and unlikely fighters—from a teenage Canadian to a Polish mother—battling just kilometers from Raqqah.