A documentary on Royava's suspended future, while caught in the crossfire between Damas, Ankara, Tehran and Moscow.
Social & External
Voice-over
If Sidik manages to spot a leopard in his beloved mountains of Kurdistan, the area can be declared a protected nature reserve. Will that finally bring peace?
Director Hüseyin Tabak explores the legacy of Yilmaz Güney — political dissident, convicted murderer, and visionary Kurdish filmmaker — who directed the 1982 Palme d'Or–winning Yol from inside prison and died in exile just two years later.
The documentary The Silent Revolution explains the revolution involving nearly 3 million kurds living in Syria. With the outbreak of the civil war —in the frame of the called ‘Arab Spring'— the Kurds of Syria have taken advantage of the context to fight for their political and cultural recognition and thus end the repression that started more than 50 years ago.
This documentary discusses how LGBTIQA+ people experience the streets and nightlife of Istanbul in terms of a safe space through the unique, yet common experiences of queers from different backgrounds, and focuses especially on nightlife and the issue of safe space there, which is a very critical area for queers to exist as they are.
Documentary on the Turkish invasion of Afrin in Northern Syria in 2018.
When artist Janet Biehl fell in love with radical American philosopher Murray Bookchin in the 1980s whilst editing his ground-breaking opus “The Ecology of Freedom”, she could never have imagined that it would one day take her halfway across the globe. Now, over 40 years later, Janet travels from America to the Middle East to witness something remarkable - how Murray’s ideas have ignited a female-led revolution in North-East Syria, where society is being rebuilt in the wake of victory over ISIS. Janet meets the women who are turning her late partner’s political theories into a modern reality, creating a grassroots communal democracy. Janet draws what she sees, and her illustrations capture the humanity of ordinary people in their struggle to self-govern. Now, at this critical moment for Syria and with this revolutionary project under renewed threat, "Threads of a Revolution" reveals a possible way forward for those prepared to fight for a new way to live.
Turkey's history has been shaped by two major political figures: Mustafa Kemal (1881-1934), known as Atatürk, the Father of the Turks, founder of the modern state, and the current president Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan, who apparently wants Turkey to regain the political and military pre-eminence it had as an empire under the Ottoman dynasty.
Here, where even monsters are political, the topography has its own memory. It has the mythological blues. Meanwhile, old gods are upset with us, and I am upset with my father.
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?
A portrait of David Rouiller, a young Swiss man who joined the Kurdish freedom movement PKK five years ago. Rouiller, the son of a university Professor and a former President of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, gave up a comfortable and safe existence in Switzerland, and the amenities of a western lifestyle, to commit his life and strength to the ideals of the Kurdish freedom fight. Is he an adventurer, a dreamer, an idealist, a hero? Is his commitment visionary or illusory?
Kurdistan, partitioned between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, could play a major role in a torn Middle East. But who are the Kurds? What influence do they have? Who exactly is Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party? An enlightening investigation by Luis Miranda.
Spearheading the 2017 battle for Raqqa against ISIS, the Kurdish forces of Rojava tried to put together a revolutionary political vision in the Levant: gender equality, self-determination, democracy, popular self-defense, anti-sectarism... But their democratic confederalism, built on mine fields and war economy, found itself struggling between imperialist foreign forces and Turkish nationalism.
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 disturbing portrait of four Western volunteers who risk their lives to fight ISIS alongside Kurdish forces. The feature documentary 'My War' probes the complex motives behind the need to take up arms on someone else’s behalf.
As the forces of ISIS and Assad tear through villages and society in Syria and Northern Iraq, a group of brave and idealistic women are taking up arms against them—and winning inspiring victories. Members of “The Free Women’s Party” come from Paris, Turkish Kurdistan, and other parts of the world. Their dream: To create a Democratic Syria, and a society based on gender equality. Guns in hand, these women are carrying on a movement with roots that run 40 years deep in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. GIRL’S WAR honors the legacy of Sakine Cansiz, co-founder of the PKK who was assassinated in Paris in 2013, and reflects on the sacrifices made by all of the women in the movement, who have endured jail, rape, war, and persecution in their quest to liberate their lives and sisters from male dominance. With scenes of solidarity, strength, and love amongst these brave women soldiers, GIRL'S WAR is a surprising story of Middle Eastern feminism on the front lines.
When a British-born actor abandons his Hollywood career to volunteer to Join the Kurdish YPG to fight ISIS in Syria, many see him as a selfless hero battling America's most insidious enemy. But others think he's a hot-tempered narcissist, staging a publicity stunt to further his career - and when his service ends, neither the UK nor the US welcome him back. Through incisive interviews with the actor, his supporters, his detractors, and top-tier experts - and featuring the actor's own jaw-dropping helmet-cam video of deadly battles with and interrogations of ISIS fighters - Heval gives viewers unprecedented access into a war against evil and one man's controversial role in it.
In 2013, Selim Yildiz spent 29 days with Kurdish soldiers (PKK) and made his first documentary 29.
An old Kurdish man Hussein Mahmood who is a carpenter tries to make artificial legs for people who have lost their legs.
Banned since 1993 in France and Germany, does the PKK still represent a danger? A dive into the heart of a complex geopolitical issue, where the fight for freedom, manipulation and pressure are intertwined.
Journey to the heart of the conflict between Kurdistan and the armed group Islamic State. This region that has been neglected and ignored for ages is now one of the key destinations for refugees in the region. This medium-length documentary show the spectator the different groups and communities that are either fighting or residing in the Kurd area.