ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Art as a bridge for peace, transcending physical and conceptual borders is the theme of the fourth Duhok International Film Festival. The weeklong festival, opening on September 9, has this year launched a partnership with Cinema for Peace, a non-profit seeking to promote peace and understanding through film.
On the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which drew the lines on the map that separated Kurds into minority groups in four separate countries, the festival theme of ‘borders’ looks at what role frontiers play in Kurdish culture and identity.
“Our festival program will include a selection of films dealing with this topic, to remind everybody of the cultural identity of this region and that the festival is a bridge for peace and tolerance crossing over borders,” Hiua Aloji, head of media and communication for the festival, told Rudaw English by email.
The Duhok IFF, the only of its kind in Kurdish lands, was created to provide a platform for Kurdish filmmakers, facilitating networking among the Kurdish film community and internationally, and to aid in marketing films from the region to the world in order to help develop the Kurdish film industry.
“As a unique festival in this region, we understand ourselves as a force for new talents and a meeting place for up and coming filmmakers,” explained Aloji, adding that gathering together Kurdish film professionals will always be a goal of the festival.
Representing a people who have known generations of struggle and oppression, and having its home in a region that is too familiar with war and terrorism, Duhok IFF seeks to use art as a way to express, react to, and overcome these difficulties.
“One of our goals at Duhok IFF is to return a cultural identity to this region so that it is perceived as a place of development again, a place that can breathe quality, epic stories, grow to new strength instead of a place of political conflict,” explained Aloji.
“We believe that creating an atmosphere of exchange between different cultures and human values can actually change thoughts, minds and attitudes, all through the art of moviemaking.”
“Art is a bearer for hope,” he added.
The festival has had some rocky years. The 2014 edition was cancelled after the Islamic State swept across northern Iraq, seizing Mosul and Sinjar, and coming close to the Kurdistan Region.
But in 2015, the festival was back “stronger than ever,” said Aloji. The third edition of Duhok IFF “was very important to us, to communicate that war, terror and injustice cannot break an artistic will.”
This year, they once more faced problems, this time financial ones. At the end of July, they announced that the festival would be cancelled again. However, through a public campaign and support from the international film community, they were able to reverse that decision and the festival will take place.
The Duhok IFF 2016 will feature “Drum” by Keywan Karimi, who was arrested in Iran and sentenced to one year in prison and 223 lashes, accused of insulting Islam through his documentary films. “Screening his first feature film this year is a way for us to show that we stand by his struggle,” said Aloji.
“Drum” was filmed secretly in Tehran and tells the story of a lawyer whose life is changed after he receives a package. It is adapted from the book by Ali Morad Fadaei Nia. Karimi will not be able to attend the festival to introduce his film as the Iranian authorities have seized his passport.
On the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which drew the lines on the map that separated Kurds into minority groups in four separate countries, the festival theme of ‘borders’ looks at what role frontiers play in Kurdish culture and identity.
“Our festival program will include a selection of films dealing with this topic, to remind everybody of the cultural identity of this region and that the festival is a bridge for peace and tolerance crossing over borders,” Hiua Aloji, head of media and communication for the festival, told Rudaw English by email.
The Duhok IFF, the only of its kind in Kurdish lands, was created to provide a platform for Kurdish filmmakers, facilitating networking among the Kurdish film community and internationally, and to aid in marketing films from the region to the world in order to help develop the Kurdish film industry.
“As a unique festival in this region, we understand ourselves as a force for new talents and a meeting place for up and coming filmmakers,” explained Aloji, adding that gathering together Kurdish film professionals will always be a goal of the festival.
Representing a people who have known generations of struggle and oppression, and having its home in a region that is too familiar with war and terrorism, Duhok IFF seeks to use art as a way to express, react to, and overcome these difficulties.
“One of our goals at Duhok IFF is to return a cultural identity to this region so that it is perceived as a place of development again, a place that can breathe quality, epic stories, grow to new strength instead of a place of political conflict,” explained Aloji.
“We believe that creating an atmosphere of exchange between different cultures and human values can actually change thoughts, minds and attitudes, all through the art of moviemaking.”
“Art is a bearer for hope,” he added.
The festival has had some rocky years. The 2014 edition was cancelled after the Islamic State swept across northern Iraq, seizing Mosul and Sinjar, and coming close to the Kurdistan Region.
But in 2015, the festival was back “stronger than ever,” said Aloji. The third edition of Duhok IFF “was very important to us, to communicate that war, terror and injustice cannot break an artistic will.”
This year, they once more faced problems, this time financial ones. At the end of July, they announced that the festival would be cancelled again. However, through a public campaign and support from the international film community, they were able to reverse that decision and the festival will take place.
The Duhok IFF 2016 will feature “Drum” by Keywan Karimi, who was arrested in Iran and sentenced to one year in prison and 223 lashes, accused of insulting Islam through his documentary films. “Screening his first feature film this year is a way for us to show that we stand by his struggle,” said Aloji.
“Drum” was filmed secretly in Tehran and tells the story of a lawyer whose life is changed after he receives a package. It is adapted from the book by Ali Morad Fadaei Nia. Karimi will not be able to attend the festival to introduce his film as the Iranian authorities have seized his passport.
Mano Khalil’s “The Swallow,” set in Duhok, tells the story of a Kurdish girl in Switzerland who returns to her father’s land, the Kurdistan Region, to find the father and home she is missing.
Bernard Henry-Levy’s documentary “Peshmerga,” shot on the Peshmerga frontlines with the Islamic State, will also be screened.
The festival will also feature 10 films by Scandinavian filmmakers and eight films screened in partnership with Cinema for Peace.
This is the first year Duhok IFF has collaborated with Cinema for Peace and they “hope for a long and profound partnership through which we achieve our goals of spreading the message of peace and justice through cinema and therefore break boundaries,” said Aloji.
Duhok IFF is a member of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, an agency that promotes and develops cinema throughout the Asia-Pacific region, where more than half the world’s population lives. This means they are able to submit and present Kurdish films to a broad audience and network within a region that produces half of the world’s films.
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