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THE 4TH LONDON KURDISH FILM FESTIVAL - LONDON 8-14 DECEMBER
Kurdish Media, UK
Dec 4 2006
The organizing committee for the Kurdish Film Festival is delighted
to welcome you to the 4th London Kurdish Film Festival. It features a
varied programme of over sixty films: fiction, documentary, animation,
features and shorts. The festival was the first - and is now the
largest - of all the Kurdish Film Festivals organised worldwide. The
event will be enriched by discussions with the directors, filmmakers
and actors themselves. One of our main aims is to promote new talent
that is emerging. We are glad to see so many young Kurdish film makers
from Europe making connections with the cultural developments that
are changing the face of Kurdish society back home, and their work
occupies a significant space in our programme. Cinema is the language
that transcends the barriers that politics, geography, religion and
cultural divisions impose upon us.
We need to cultivate it in order to enrich the dialogue between
nationalities that live together.
It is a particular pleasure to hold our festival at the Rio Cinema,
which has supported the event since its inception. We have come a
long way since our first festival in 2001. The LKFF was launched by a
group of volunteers who came together following an initial call from
the Halkevi-Kurdish and Turkish Community Centre in Hackney. We have
grown over the years, empowered by new recruits to the organising
committee, which has held constructive discussions to determine how
to take the work forward to best fulfil its responsibilities. All the
individuals involved in organising the film festival were aware from
the beginning of the fact that the festival is organised on behalf
of the largest nation in the world without a nation-state. This is
a difficult task not made easier by the fact that we lack the basic
support that other nations in the world enjoy. Our discussions led
us to seek to develop a structure that would be more accountable
to the Kurdish people as well as making it possible to obtain more
support from within the heart of the community. At the end of 2004,
the LKFF decided to become a joint sub-committee of the main community
centres in the UK - Halkevi Kurdish and Turkish Community Centre in
Hackney, Kurdish Cultural Centre in Lambeth, Kurdish Community Centre
in Haringey and Kurdish Exile Association in Kensington and Chelsea.
The fledgling Kurdish Film Industry has been very prolific since
our last festival in November 2004. In recent months some of these
films have managed to scoop prestigious awards at international
film festivals. Filmmaking is relatively new to Kurdistan, but it
has already produced some memorable works, some of which have taken
the critics by storm and have achieved worldwide distribution and
acclaim. As result of political developments involving the Kurds in
particular, new found stability especially in South Kurdistan (Iraq)
enabled activities to develop giving fresh impetus to Kurdish cinema.
Having received more films than ever this year, we had to go through
a rigorous selection process to decide on our one-week programme.
Sadly, we could only accomodate half of the films submitted. This
year is also a year of firsts. We are particularly proud to introduce
the classic silent film ZARE, made in 1926 in Armenia. This film is
considered to be the first film ever made about the Kurds and we
would like to thank the Armenian National Film Centre and Yerevan
International Film Festival for the great efforts they have made to
enable us to show this film in our festival. And we are particularly
happy to present some Kurdish animated films for the first time.
These, together with other films suitable for children have given
us the opportunity to present a schools/young people's programme for
the first time.
Festival highlights will include: Bahman Ghobadi's HALF MOON winner of
three awards at this year's San Sebastian Film Festival, the British
premiere of Omer Ugur's HOME COMING, about the military coup in Turkey
in 1980, Jamil Rostami's REQUIEM OF SNOW, best foreign film contender
for Iraq at the 2005 Academy Awards, Hiner Saleem's KILOMETRE ZERO
selected for the Cannes competition in 2005, Mahdi Omat's brand new
NIGHT OF MANY YEARS, Jalal Jonroy's political comedy DAVID and LAYLA,
Yilmaz Arslan's recent feature FRATRICIDE, Masoud Arif Salih & Hussein
Hassan Ali's film made entirely with a Kurdish crew NARCISSUS BLOSSOM,
Mano Khalil joining us with two masterful documentaries DAVID THE
TOLHILDAN and AL-ANFAL, Halil Uysal and his friends honouring us with
their latest film BERITAN, Karzan Sherabayani's RETURN TO KIRKUK,
Gwynne Roberts & John Williams's SADDAM'S ROAD TO HELL and Cayan
Demirel's 38. The festival also includes many award winning short
films and a diverse range of fascinating and powerful documentaries.
All films will have English subtitles except BERITAN.
Our message for this year is: Without dialogue, peace is impossible. We
hope that our festival will encourage peace and understanding amongst
all people.
Enjoy the Festival!
Kurdish Media, UK
Dec 4 2006
The organizing committee for the Kurdish Film Festival is delighted
to welcome you to the 4th London Kurdish Film Festival. It features a
varied programme of over sixty films: fiction, documentary, animation,
features and shorts. The festival was the first - and is now the
largest - of all the Kurdish Film Festivals organised worldwide. The
event will be enriched by discussions with the directors, filmmakers
and actors themselves. One of our main aims is to promote new talent
that is emerging. We are glad to see so many young Kurdish film makers
from Europe making connections with the cultural developments that
are changing the face of Kurdish society back home, and their work
occupies a significant space in our programme. Cinema is the language
that transcends the barriers that politics, geography, religion and
cultural divisions impose upon us.
We need to cultivate it in order to enrich the dialogue between
nationalities that live together.
It is a particular pleasure to hold our festival at the Rio Cinema,
which has supported the event since its inception. We have come a
long way since our first festival in 2001. The LKFF was launched by a
group of volunteers who came together following an initial call from
the Halkevi-Kurdish and Turkish Community Centre in Hackney. We have
grown over the years, empowered by new recruits to the organising
committee, which has held constructive discussions to determine how
to take the work forward to best fulfil its responsibilities. All the
individuals involved in organising the film festival were aware from
the beginning of the fact that the festival is organised on behalf
of the largest nation in the world without a nation-state. This is
a difficult task not made easier by the fact that we lack the basic
support that other nations in the world enjoy. Our discussions led
us to seek to develop a structure that would be more accountable
to the Kurdish people as well as making it possible to obtain more
support from within the heart of the community. At the end of 2004,
the LKFF decided to become a joint sub-committee of the main community
centres in the UK - Halkevi Kurdish and Turkish Community Centre in
Hackney, Kurdish Cultural Centre in Lambeth, Kurdish Community Centre
in Haringey and Kurdish Exile Association in Kensington and Chelsea.
The fledgling Kurdish Film Industry has been very prolific since
our last festival in November 2004. In recent months some of these
films have managed to scoop prestigious awards at international
film festivals. Filmmaking is relatively new to Kurdistan, but it
has already produced some memorable works, some of which have taken
the critics by storm and have achieved worldwide distribution and
acclaim. As result of political developments involving the Kurds in
particular, new found stability especially in South Kurdistan (Iraq)
enabled activities to develop giving fresh impetus to Kurdish cinema.
Having received more films than ever this year, we had to go through
a rigorous selection process to decide on our one-week programme.
Sadly, we could only accomodate half of the films submitted. This
year is also a year of firsts. We are particularly proud to introduce
the classic silent film ZARE, made in 1926 in Armenia. This film is
considered to be the first film ever made about the Kurds and we
would like to thank the Armenian National Film Centre and Yerevan
International Film Festival for the great efforts they have made to
enable us to show this film in our festival. And we are particularly
happy to present some Kurdish animated films for the first time.
These, together with other films suitable for children have given
us the opportunity to present a schools/young people's programme for
the first time.
Festival highlights will include: Bahman Ghobadi's HALF MOON winner of
three awards at this year's San Sebastian Film Festival, the British
premiere of Omer Ugur's HOME COMING, about the military coup in Turkey
in 1980, Jamil Rostami's REQUIEM OF SNOW, best foreign film contender
for Iraq at the 2005 Academy Awards, Hiner Saleem's KILOMETRE ZERO
selected for the Cannes competition in 2005, Mahdi Omat's brand new
NIGHT OF MANY YEARS, Jalal Jonroy's political comedy DAVID and LAYLA,
Yilmaz Arslan's recent feature FRATRICIDE, Masoud Arif Salih & Hussein
Hassan Ali's film made entirely with a Kurdish crew NARCISSUS BLOSSOM,
Mano Khalil joining us with two masterful documentaries DAVID THE
TOLHILDAN and AL-ANFAL, Halil Uysal and his friends honouring us with
their latest film BERITAN, Karzan Sherabayani's RETURN TO KIRKUK,
Gwynne Roberts & John Williams's SADDAM'S ROAD TO HELL and Cayan
Demirel's 38. The festival also includes many award winning short
films and a diverse range of fascinating and powerful documentaries.
All films will have English subtitles except BERITAN.
Our message for this year is: Without dialogue, peace is impossible. We
hope that our festival will encourage peace and understanding amongst
all people.
Enjoy the Festival!