After their father dies, a family of five children are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq.
Kurdish-Iranian poet Sahel has just been released from a thirty-year prison sentence in Iran. Now the one thing keeping him going is the thought of finding his wife, who thinks he's been dead for over twenty years.
Elaha, 22, believes she must restore her supposed innocence before she weds. A surgeon could reconstruct her hymen but she cannot afford such an operation. She asks herself: why does she have to be a virgin anyway, and for whom?
A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.
Fatma and her mother are Kurdish refugees living in Italy. One day at the hospital, Fatma learns her mother has breast cancer.
Sivan Encü, a young Kurdish man, provided for his family by "smuggling" through the Turkish-Iraqi border. When he was murdered in the 2011 Robozik (Roboski) Massacre, the responsibility of family's welfare was taken over by his younger brother Sinan, who lost his life in an unfortunate accident. This is the story of their grief-stricken mother Heyam and her resilience. Alongside Heyam's struggle, the film brings the voices of Robozik elders and notables to the forefront, who have experienced first-hand the social, political and economic dimensions of smuggling, which has been the backbone of survival for the locals for many generations.
The story of a Kurdish newspaper whose journalists are under the constant threat of being abducted and killed by the state security forces.
The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.
Hundreds of Western volunteers have joined Kurdish armies in Syria and Iraq in their efforts to fight the Islamic State. What drives some Canadians to put their lives on the line?
In the 1990s, some newspapers were not allowed to enter the Diyarbakir region, under a state of emergency at that time, although they were legal. Children like Bawer and Hebûn, who were part of the distribution group, would secretly collect these newspapers from outside the city at a previously agreed location and take them to the planned meeting place in the city. There, the children changed their clothes and went out to distribute them, under the guise of other work. But they were constantly followed by those who saw the newspaper as dangerous and wanted to prevent its dissemination. Çerx is a testament to the conditions under which these newspapers were distributed to readers and the difficulties encountered.
KÖY (Turkish for village) is about the longing for home, for belonging and the freedom of the self. Three women from three generations are united by their Kurdish roots.
A priceless tablet of Gilgamesh, the oldest and most important work of literature is stolen from a museum. A security guard vows to do whatever it takes to get it back from a group of smugglers. Along the way, he faces his own inner demons.
An underdog basketball team under the helm of an idealist school teacher from hard scrabble Diyarbakir in Southeastern Turkey goes beyond winning games in their mission to rise above prejudice, poverty and political turmoil created by the decades long conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish rebels who are fighting for local autonomy and cultural rights.
Aslı Erdoğan, world-renowned author and activist, has fallen into silence after she fled to Germany. Incomplete Sentences is a feature documentary on her literature and life, leading to exile in Frankfurt, after the Turkish regime’s oppression results in her unlawful imprisonment. Now, she struggles in exile while everybody is waiting for her to write again. Right after getting out of prison Aslı starts telling her story to the director, wandering in the streets of Istanbul she recites parts from her books and explains the stories behind. When Aslı goes to Germany to receive the Erich Maria Remarque Award she cannot return; thus her exile, which she likens to a semi-open prison, begins. As her health deteriorates and keeps her from writing, the tragedy in her books becomes her own reality.
Kawa Nemir is like a walking dictionary of the Kurdish language. He flees Turkey and takes refuge at Anne Frank's former house in Amsterdam. Will he be able to finish the translation of Ulysses and publish it?
In the winter of 1988, in the depths of the Iraq/Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.
Casimê Celîl was born into a Yezidi Kurdish family in 1908, in a village called Kızılkule, located in Digor, Kars. The village and family life, which he longed to remember throughout his life, ends with the massacre they endured in 1918. During his long road to Erivan, Armenia, he lost all his family members. Left all alone, Casim was placed into an orphanage and was forced to change his name. To remember who he was and where he came from, every morning he repeated the mantra “Navê min Casim e, Ez kurê Celîlim, Ez ji gundê Qizilquleyê Dîgorê me, Ez Kurdim, Kurdê Êzîdî me”, which translates to: “My name is Casim, I am the son of Celîl, I come from the village of Kızılkule in Digor, I am a Kurd, and I am Yezidi”. He clings to every piece of his culture he can find, reads, and saves whatever Kurdish literature or art he comes across. As the year’s pass, Casim finds himself with an impressive collection of Kurdish culture and history.
Three women, three wars, one dream. Lanja is a journalist in Iraq fearlessly fighting against honor violence. Maia in Abkhazia battles archaic customs like 'bride kidnapping'. Nelly runs a women's shelter in the slums of Monrovia, Liberia. A universal story of women's courage and survival in the aftermath of war.
This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of life and death.
A Kurdish woman as a suspect of terrorism: the exciting political thriller deeply depicts the racist surveillance system in Turkey. The young Kurdish woman Arjin is under surveillance by the Turkish intelligence service. Her offense: She housed another Kurdish woman for one night, who then disappeared without a trace. Every step of Arjin and her friend Sidar is monitored from now on. When Ramo, a secret service worker of Kurdish origin, claims to have found evidence that Arjin and Sidar are involved in the planning of a suicide bombing in Istanbul, the ugly face of the Turkish government is uncovered.