The Kurdish Film Festival Berlin celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The festival will be held online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Since its founding in 2002 the festival has established itself in the Berlin festival scene and is widely known even beyond the Kurdish community.
More than 60 films will be screened at the festival this year, with topics including the environment, politics, migration, war and history. Tickets are available at kurdishfilmfestivalberlin.kinow.tv. An anniversary festival pass costs 30 Euros.
The festival’s programme also includes several exhibitions, panel discussions and concerts.
Ahu Öztürk’s film Dust (2015), Erol Mintaş’s Klama Dayika Min (The Song of My Mother), Soner Caner and Barış Kaya’s Rauf (2016), Zeynel Doğan and Orhan Eskiköy’s Voice of My Father, and Rodi Güven Yalçınkaya’s film Mome (2020) will be featured in the Focus selection.
Lea Drescher, the German filmmaker, will be the art director of the festival, and Katherina Nasterowa and Roj Younus will be the coordinators.
The programme curator of the festival will be the artist Leyla Toprak.
The festival will take place from 8 to 31 October on digital media.
This year the festival will focus on the economic and ecological crisis across the world from the perspective of Kurdish cinema in Turkey, with the aim of drawing attention to the violations of human rights occuring in areas where Kurdish people live.
Yılmaz Güney’s film, Yol, will also be screened in the festival program.
In addition, a short film festival will be held to support young filmmakers.
Umay Işık, the youngest director of the festival and also the social media expert of MedyaNews, will exhibit his short film Vegerîna Xizan. The film is a story of Kurdish people whose villages were destroyed in Turkey in 1994. Işık says: “I grew up with exile stories told by my grandfather and grandmother. My grandmother survived exile and I am telling her story. But many stories still wait for their narrators in Kurdistan”.
Famous Kurdish musicians such as Ciwan Haco, Rojda, Kerem Gerdenzeri (Koma Wetan) and Hani will perform online concerts on the first night of the festival.
Panels will be held with topics including “Education in Turkey”, based on Mehmet Mim Kurt’s film, The Seven Doors, and “The art and therapy of trauma”, in collaboration with the Jiyan Human Rights Foundation.
The festival programme also includes a panel to discuss the topic “Filmmaking in corona times”.
