Dutch channel buys Sinai Desert kidnap doc

A Dutch public broadcaster has become the latest to acquire The Sound of Torture, a chilling documentary about refugee kidnappings in the Sinai Desert.

Esther Van Messel, CEO of the film’s distributor First Hand Films, told TBI pubcaster Vara has acquired the 1x52mins doc (aka Journey Story), which comes from Israel’s Trabelsi Production and satcaster Yes.

The programme explores how and why a growing number of Eritrean refugees are being kidnapped by Bedouins in the Sinai Desert and held to ransom in hidden torture camps.

Broadcasters such as ZDF/Arte in Germany, SVT in Sweden and SRF in Switzerland have already acquired the doc, which was first screened at IDFA in Amsterdam last November.

It will launch to the global market at MIPDoc in April.