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Sahim Omar Kalifa (born 1980 in Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan) is a Belgian-Kurdish filmmaker based in Belgium. [1]
In 2001, he came to Belgium, and in 2008 he got his Master's degree in filmmaking at Sint-Lukas Film School, Brussels. With his short film Nan, Kalifa won the Best Flemish Student Film at the Leuven International Short Film Festival. [2]
Kalifa has won more than 100 international awards for his short films Land of the Heroes, Baghdad Messi, and Bad Hunter.
The biggest achievements so far are:
A-Jury Prize as Best Short film for ‘Land of the heroes’ at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.
B- ‘Baghdad Messi’ was shortlisted for the 87th Academy Awards, better known as The Oscars. It was one of the 10 finalists. [3]
C- ‘Bad Hunter’ was also shortlisted for the 88th Academy Awards. [4]
D- ZAGROS ‘Feature Film’: Winner of The Grand Prix For BEST FILM at 44th Ghent Film Festival. Audience Award for Best Film at 18th Arras Film Festival – France. Best Director at 18th Arras Film Festival – France. Audience Award for Best Film at 35th Annonay Film Festival – France. 47th Rotterdam International Film Festival – Official selection. 72nd Edinburgh Film Festival – Official Selection - UK. 35th Munich Film Festival – Official Selection. 42nd Montreal World Film Festival - Canada.
Bad Hunter won the Jury Prize in the Muhr Short Film Competition at the 2014 Dubai International Film Festival. [5]
‘Bad Hunter’ won also several international Awards at some important film festivals, like Jury Award at 59th Valladolid, 38th Montreal World, Dubai IFF and Flickerfest International Film Festival.
2014, Sahim was chosen in Istanbul as Best Kurdish film director.
In 2016 Sahim was invited to be one of the more than 6,000 voting members of the Academy Awards. [6] In 2017 his Documentary Film ‘Cornered in Molenbeek’ has won Best Belgian Documentary TV Series at Docville Documentary Film Festival. And also selected for Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival – Official competition
In May 2016, Sahim started filming his first feature film Zagros, supported by Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (VAF), Dutch Film Fund and Eurimages. [7]
His documentary film Iraq's Invisible Beauty tells the story of the late Iraqi photographer Latif al-Ani and his photographic documentation of Iraq between the 1950s and 1970s. [8]
Bahman Ghobadi is an Iranian Kurdish film director, producer and writer. He belongs to the "new wave" of Iranian cinema.
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Jayan K. Cherian is an Indian poet filmmaker who lives in New York City, US. He used to write in Malayalam and English languages. His documentary film Shape of the Shapeless got wide popularity on Many film festivals like International festival circuit, The International Film Festival of South Africa, as well as several festivals in North America. It won the Silver Jury Prize at the San Francisco Short Film Festival 2010, the Eastman Kodak award for Best Cinematography, and City Visions 2010 award for Best Documentary. Graduated with honors from Hunter College, BA in Film and Creative Writing and MFA from The City College of New York in Writing Directing Film, and Cinematography. Ka Bodyscapes (2016) is his new feature film, Papilio Buddha (2013), his critically acclaimed debut feature film, was screened in the Panorama Section at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. He made several experimental documentaries and narrative shorts such as: Shape of the Shapeless (2010) Love in the Time of Foreclosure (2009), Hidden Things (2009), Soul of Solomon (2008), Capturing the Signs of God (2008), Holy Mass (2007), Tree of Life (2007), Simulacra the Reality of the Unreal (2007), The Inner Silence of the Tumult (2007), Hid-entity (2007), and Tandava the Dance of Dissolution(2006).
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