‘Ugly King’ Yılmaz Güney and Bahman Ghobadi on the way to Diyarbakır

Kurdish has been a fixture on the silver screen ever since Bahman Ghobadi’s “A Time for Drunken Horses” won international plaudits at the beginning of the 2000s. Now, the success of Kurdish cinema in recent years has spawned the idea of a festival.

Featuring a story about a Kurdish family set in Kurdish, “A Time for Drunken Horses” captured a Golden Camera Award in 2000.

Until Ghobadi, the first name that came to mind in Kurdish cinema was scriptwriter Yılmaz Güney, who was nicknamed the Ugly King. Long before Ghobadi, in fact, Güney won the Golden Camera Award at Cannes in 1982 for “Yol” (The Road), directed by Şerif Gören. He shared the award with Greek director Costa Gavras’ “Missing.”

But Güney’s success was limited in one sense because there was no established Kurdish cinema in those years. Furthermore, the film’s language was Turkish, not Kurdish. “Zare,” made in 1926, is regarded as the beginning of Kurdish cinema. Although the film was made with the participation of a Kurdish tribe, its director was Armenian Hamo Bek-nazaryan. It is not possible to talk about the emergence of a real Kurdish cinema until the middle of the 1990s.

First Kurdish cinema festival

At the end of the 1990s, young Kurdish directors from the diaspora brought fresh air to cinema just at the time when the first examples of Kurdish cinema were meeting with audiences around the world.

The Diyarbakır Cinema Center was formed in 2002 as part of Anadolu Kültür (Anatolian Culture), a civil society initiative, and began looking for possibilities to hold a festival under the direction of Kemal Yıldızhan.

That search has come to fruition, as a festival is now scheduled for early December in Diyarbakır to be accompanied by a conference attended about Kurdish cinema by world-renowned directors and scriptwriters, according to Yıldızhan. He talked to the Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality about the issue and received its support. The festival will run from Dec. 4 to 13, with film screenings on Dec. 12 and 13.

‘Six regions, six films’

The Kurdish Film Festival is being organized on the theme “Six Regions, Six Films,” with previously unscreened films from Kurdish directors from Iraq, Iran, Turkey and the United States scheduled for exhibition. Speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, Yıldızhan said, “Even though Kurdish cinema has been much discussed in recent years, it should be discussed at length.”

He said the focal point of the conference would be films made by the young generation of Kurdish directors from the diaspora. “There will be discussions to determine whether these films constitute Kurdish cinema or not,” he said.

Ghobadi completes Güney’s unfinished work

The festival plans to screen Hiner Salem’s “0 Kilometre” (Kilometer Zero), Kazım Öz’s “Bahoz,” Hisen Hesen Ali’s “Havini,” Miraz Bezar’s “Min Dit,” Jalal Jonroy’s “David ve Leyla” (David and Leyla) and Ghobadi’s “Yarım Ay” (Half Moon).

Talking about Ghobadi’s importance in terms of Kurdish cinema, Yıldızhan recalled Güney’s words. “If Kurdish had not been banned in Turkey, I would have made ‘Sürü’ (The Herd) in Kurdish,” Yıldızhan said. “After years, Ghobadi succeeded where Güney failed. He put Kurdish people on the world agenda with this film.”

Introversion in metaphor and themes

Films made by Kurdish directors generally feature themes of statelessness, language problems and destitution while borders, difficult geographical conditions and snow are also highlighted. “Kurdish cinema is trying to open to the world by baring its heart,” said Yıldızhan.

“Kurdish directors in the diaspora have an interactive relation with the culture of the country they live in. They are nourished by Kurdish culture as well as their country [of residence]. This interaction will make Kurdish cinema richer in the future,” he said.