Under Every Yard of Sky

“Under Every Yard of Sky” tells the story of the struggle of modern day Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraq’s Kurds have fought for years for their independence. In the 1980s and 90s, Saddam Hussein waged war against the Kurds, killing hundreds of thousands. In 2003 after the US-led invasion, Kurdistan’s fortunes began to rise. With Saddam’s regime dismantled, the previous decades of violence and poverty began to fade into memory. Kurdistan became astonishingly peaceful as oil money began to flow. Housing developments began to overtake the countryside and foreign workers from Bangladesh and Ethiopia were flown in to do the jobs that Kurds no longer wanted. Then in 2014 it all came to terrifying halt as ISIS swept into Iraq and the region descended again into violence. “Under Every Yard of Sky” explores the intimate and paradoxical aspects of Iraq’s Kurdish people who are forever caught in the unresolved turmoil that haunts their region.