Bilal, giovane curdo, ha lasciato il suo paese alla volta di Calais, dove sogna e spera di imbarcarsi per l'Inghilterra. Dall'altra parte della Manica lo attende un'adolescente che il padre ha promesso in sposa a un ricco cugino. Fallito il tentativo di salire clandestinamente su un traghetto, Bilal è deciso ad attraversare la Manica a nuoto. Recatosi presso una piscina comunale incontra Simon, un istruttore di nuoto di mezza età prossimo alla separazione dalla moglie, amata ancora enormemente e in segreto. Colpito dall'ostinazione e dal sentimento del ragazzo, Simon lo allenerà e lo incoraggerà a non cedere mai ai marosi della vita. A sua volta Bilal aprirà nel cuore infranto di Simon una breccia in cui accoglierlo. Ma il mondo fuori è avverso e inospitale e l'uomo dovrà sfidare le delazioni dei vicini di casa e la legge sull'immigrazione che condanna i cittadini troppo umani e “intraprendenti” col prossimo.
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?
Sarya lives between three worlds: Having fled from Turkey to Japan, her small family tries to maintain their Kurdish traditions. On the other hand, Sarya, who arrived when she was five, feels at home in Japan. But then, the family loses its refugee-status. Life becomes unpredictable and their days in Japan seem numbered. A haunting story about the balancing act of finding your place in the world.
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.
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?
AVDEL feeds his family with the salary of his old donkey, BOZO, who works in the waste department of the city of Mardin in Turkey. It is also home to his nephew, SALIH, who fled Syria because of the war. After BOZO’s “retirement”, Avdel must find a younger ass to continue to earn his salary. So traumatized by the war Salih returns to Syria to recover his.
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.
In the metropolitan city of Hamburg, illegal immigrant Chernor, an openly gay African youth with blond hair, makes his money by dealing drugs and dreams of one day living in Australia. Baran, meanwhile, is a Kurdish bicycle delivery boy living in constant fear of deportation, who keeps his past in a video camera. The two form a bond when they meet, and their shared struggles to survive soon develop into a relationship that is threatened when Baran loses his job.
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.
“Binxet – Sotto il confine” è un viaggio tra vita e morte, dignità e dolore, lotta e libertà. Si svolge lungo i 911 km del confine turco-siriano. Da una parte l’ISIS, dall’altra la Turchia di Erdogan. In mezzo il confine ed una speranza. Questa speranza si chiama Rojava, soltanto un punto sulla carta di una regione tormentata, terra di resistenza ma anche laboratorio di democrazia dal basso, luogo in cui, sui fucili di chi combatte, sventolano bandiere di colori diversi ma che che parlano lo stesso linguaggio; quello dell’ uguaglianza di genere, dell’autodeterminazione dei popoli e della convivenza pacifica.
The movie follows Kurdistan during the Covid-19 crisis in 2019, and how it ruined relationships between loved ones.
Filmmaker Binevsa Bêrîvan travels to Armenia to capture the daily life, customs, and history of the country's Yazidi Kurdish community.
A mentally handicapped girl has been raped a few months ago. Her parents, Jalal and Maryam are trying to abort the baby and get rid of it but something worse happens
A Kurdish woman is sentenced to six years of house arrest with an electronic ankle bracelet. The charge: supporting terrorist activities. From now on an invisible border runs through her garden in a Turkish village, which she repeatedly trespasses. Her older son is torn between obedience and rebellion. How far will he go to protect his mother from further punishment?
The story of this film is an aesthetic narration of the death of a Kurdish Family, along the 20th century.
A village, in the hearts of mountains, is totally empty. Still it is not. The village comes to life back with past voices. There is no people in the village. But their voices exist. There are no animals and no living things. But their voices exist. The past voices, together with scenes happenning right now, create memory about what happened there. It is the story of people, animals, nature and all the living things of a village before it is ruined.
In 2013, Selim Yildiz spent 29 days with Kurdish soldiers (PKK) and made his first documentary 29.
Through a series of vignettes from the ancient and war-torn Levant, WILD IS THE SPRING captures moments in the lives of diverse ethnic communities who struggle to survive when life descends into chaos.
12-year-old Dyab is a Kurdish Yazidi boy living at Arbat refugee camp, after the horrendous attacks by the Islamic States on their villages at Shingal Mountains (Sinjar). However, Dyab’s dream is, to become a filmmaker and actor and tell the stories and sufferings of his people to the outside world.