Northeast Syria's Kurdish region, known locally as Rojava, sits almost unreported at the edge of the country's civil war until jihadist groups push into Hassakeh province in 2013. Turkey has sealed the border to journalists, so the VICE News crew crosses illegally, dodging army patrols, to reach Kovan Direj, a Kurdish activist living as a refugee after the Assad regime withdrew its forces from the area. On the ground, the film follows the YPG, the Kurdish militia tied to the PKK, as it fights an alliance of jihadist groups including ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra around the border town of Ras al-Ayn, with Syrian Christian militias fighting alongside them to hold a fragile ethnic balance between Kurds, Arabs, and Christians. Most of the fighters are local farmers, defending villages that sit directly on the front line, with mobile units of better-trained troops held in reserve. The region also holds roughly 60 percent of Syria's oil reserves, raising the stakes for whoever ends up controlling it.