The Halabja massacre took place in Iraqi Kurdistan on 16 March 1988, when thousands of Kurds were killed by a large-scale Iraqi chemical attack. A targeted attack in Halabja, it was carried out during the Anfal campaign, which was led by Iraqi military officer Ali Hassan al-Majid. Two days before the attack, the city had been captured by Iran as part of Operation Zafar 7 of the Iran–Iraq War. Following the incident, the United Nations launched an investigation and concluded that mustard gas and other unidentified nerve agents had been used against Kurdish civilians. The United States Defense Intelligence Agency initially blamed Iran for the attack, though the majority of evidence later revealed that Iraq had used the chemical weapons to bolster an ongoing military offensive against Iran, pro-Iranian Kurdish fighters, and ordinary Halabja residents.
Halabja is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about 240 km (150 mi) northeast of Baghdad and 14 km (9 mi) from the Iranian border.
Turtles Can Fly is a 2004 Iranian war drama film written, directed and co-produced by Bahman Ghobadi. The film stars Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Saddam Hossein Faysal, Hiresh Feysal Rahman, Abdolrahman Karim, Ajil Zibari. The plot is about three refugee children near the Iraqi-Turkish border, awaiting for the Americans to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian Kurdish film director, producer and writer. He belongs to the "new wave" of Iranian cinema.
A Time for Drunken Horses is a 2000 Kurdish language drama film directed by Bahman Ghobadi and produced in Iran. It was a co-winner of the Caméra d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. Leonard Maltin notes that the film was "written by the director and shot in his native village, with a cast of extraordinary non-professionals."
Tawfeq Mahmoud Hamza or Piramerd was a Kurdish poet, writer, novelist and journalist. He was born in the Goija neighborhood of Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region. In 1926, he became the editor of the Kurdish newspaper Jîyan. He also established a private Kurdish school in Kurdistan, called Pertûkxaney Zanistî.
Uzak is a 2002 Turkish drama film written, produced, shot and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Ibrahim Ahmad was an Iraqi Kurdish writer, novelist, jurist and translator who founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in 1975. He is the father-in-law of Jalal Talabani and Abdul Latif Rashid through both of his daughters.
Kurdish cinema focuses on the Kurdish people and culture. The fate of the Kurds as a people without a state shaped their cinema. Kurdish films often show social grievances, oppression, torture, human rights violations, and life as a stranger. Kurdish cinema has a high significance for the Kurds, as it offers the opportunity to draw attention to their own situation artistically. However, because of state repression, most films are produced in exile. The best example of this is in Turkey, where Kurds were not permitted to speak their native language until 1991, which made the development of their films more difficult.
Big Man, Little Love is a 2001 international co-production drama film, written and directed by Handan İpekçi, about an orphaned Kurdish child and a Turkish pensioner thrown together by circumstance. The film, which went on nationwide general release across Turkey on October 19, 2001, won awards at film festivals in Antalya, Cairo, Cologne and Istanbul, including the Golden Orange for Best Film, and was Turkey's submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Blackboards is a 2000 Iranian film directed by Samira Makhmalbaf. It focuses on a group of Kurdish refugees after the chemical bombing of Halabja by Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. The screenplay was co-written by Makhmalbaf with her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The dialogue is entirely in Kurdish. Makhmalbaf describes it as "something between reality and fiction. Smuggling, being homeless, and people’s efforts to survive are all part of reality... the film, as a whole, is a metaphor."
Koutaiba Al-Janabi is a British-based Iraqi filmmaker, director and photographer. He filmed Wasteland: Between London and Baghdad and the 2010 award-winning film, Leaving Baghdad. He is a member of the Hungarian Society of Cinematographers.
Saman Salur is an Iranian film director and screenwriter. He graduated from Soore University with a Bachelor of Film and Television in Directing.
The Orphan of Anyang is a 2001 Chinese film from Sixth Generation writer-director Wang Chao. It is Wang's first feature film as director, and is based on a novel written by the director. The film constitutes the first part of a loose trilogy on life in modern China, followed by Day and Night (2004), and Luxury Car (2006). The film was produced by the independent Beijing-based Laurel Films, founded by screenwriter Fang Li. International distribution was by the French company Onoma.
Jano Rosebiani is a Kurdish American filmmaker. He is the winner of numerous international awards and has been listed in the top 35 world filmmakers in the book "Cineaste Uit De Schaduw" by Belgian celebrity photographer Kris De Witte.
Min Dît: The Children of Diyarbakır, alternatively titled Before Your Eyes, is a 2009 Kurdish-language drama film directed by German-based Kurdish filmmaker Miraz Bezar, based on a story that he co-wrote with journalist and short-story writer Evrim Alataş, about street children in the eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır. The film, which went on nationwide general release across Turkey on April 2, 2010, was the first Turkish film produced in Kurdish and won awards at film festivals in San Sebastian, where it premiered, Antalya and Istanbul.
Nila Madhab Panda is an Indian film producer and director. Panda has directed and produced over 70 films, documentaries, and shorts based on social issues, such as climate change, child labor, education, water issues, sanitation and other developmental issues in India. Many of his films are based on his own experiences. He has won several awards and received critical acclaim for his films which have been described as "entertaining yet socially relevant."
Małgorzata Szumowska is a Polish film director, screenwriter and producer, born in Kraków.
Bülent Öztürk is a Belgian-Kurdisch screenwriter and director based in Antwerp, Belgium. His films have been nominated for and celebrated with several (international) awards. His films stand out because of their minimalist and documentary style with spare use of dialogue and the recurrence of socially and culturally concerned themes. His short film Houses with Small Windows (2013) was awarded the title of best European short film at the Venice Film Festival, and was nominated for the 26th European Film Awards in Berlin. In his home country the film received an ‘Ensor’ for best short film at the Ostend Film Festival. Apart from writing and directing two documentaries and three short films, Öztürk presented his first feature film Blue Silence in 2017, with the support of The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF).
Kazim Öz is a Kurdish film director, scriptwriter and producer. In 1992 he began acting at Teatra Jiyana Nû, while also working on movies.
