‘UGLY KING’ YILMAZ GUNEY AND BAHMAN GHOBADI ON THE WAY TO DIYARBAKIR

Hurriyet
Nov 24 2009
Turkey

Turkey’s first Kurdish Films Conference and Festival will be held
in December in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. The festival,
jointly organized by the Diyarbakir Cinema Center and Diyarbakir
Metropolitan Municipality, is expected to host some of the world’s
leading directors and scriptwriters

Kurdish has been a fixture on the silver screen ever since Bahman
Ghobadi’s "A Time for Drunken Horses" won international plaudits at
the beginning of the 2000s. Now, the success of Kurdish cinema in
recent years has spawned the idea of a festival.

Featuring a story about a Kurdish family set in Kurdish, "A Time for
Drunken Horses" captured a Golden Camera Award in 2000.

Until Ghobadi, the first name that came to mind in Kurdish cinema
was scriptwriter Yilmaz Guney, who was nicknamed the Ugly King. Long
before Ghobadi, in fact, Guney won the Golden Camera Award at Cannes
in 1982 for "Yol" (The Road), directed by Å~^erif Gören. He shared
the award with Greek director Costa Gavras’ "Missing."

But Guney’s success was limited in one sense because there was no
established Kurdish cinema in those years. Furthermore, the film’s
language was Turkish, not Kurdish. "Zare," made in 1926, is regarded
as the beginning of Kurdish cinema. Although the film was made with
the participation of a Kurdish tribe, its director was Armenian Hamo
Bek-nazaryan. It is not possible to talk about the emergence of a
real Kurdish cinema until the middle of the 1990s.

First Kurdish cinema festival

At the end of the 1990s, young Kurdish directors from the diaspora
brought fresh air to cinema just at the time when the first examples
of Kurdish cinema were meeting with audiences around the world.

The Diyarbakir Cinema Center was formed in 2002 as part of Anadolu
Kultur (Anatolian Culture), a civil society initiative, and began
looking for possibilities to hold a festival under the direction of
Kemal Yıldızhan.

That search has come to fruition, as a festival is now scheduled for
early December in Diyarbakir to be accompanied by a conference attended
about Kurdish cinema by world-renowned directors and scriptwriters,
according to Yıldızhan. He talked to the Diyarbakir Metropolitan
Municipality about the issue and received its support.

The festival will run from Dec. 4 to 13, with film screenings on Dec.

12 and 13.

‘Six regions, six films’

The Kurdish Film Festival is being organized on the theme "Six
Regions, Six Films," with previously unscreened films from Kurdish
directors from Iraq, Iran, Turkey and the United States scheduled for
exhibition. Speaking to the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review,
Yıldızhan said, "Even though Kurdish cinema has been much discussed
in recent years, it should be discussed at length."

He said the focal point of the conference would be films made by the
young generation of Kurdish directors from the diaspora. "There will
be discussions to determine whether these films constitute Kurdish
cinema or not," he said.

Ghobadi completes Guney’s unfinished work

The festival plans to screen Hiner Salem’s "0 Kilometre" (Kilometer
Zero), Kazım Oz’s "Bahoz," Hisen Hesen Ali’s "Havini," Miraz Bezar’s
"Min Dit," Jalal Jonroy’s "David ve Leyla" (David and Leyla) and
Ghobadi’s "Yarım Ay" (Half Moon).

Talking about Ghobadi’s importance in terms of Kurdish cinema,
Yıldızhan recalled Guney’s words. "If Kurdish had not been banned in
Turkey, I would have made ‘Suru’ (The Herd) in Kurdish," Yıldızhan
said. "After years, Ghobadi succeeded where Guney failed. He put
Kurdish people on the world agenda with this film."

Introversion in metaphor and themes

Films made by Kurdish directors generally feature themes of
statelessness, language problems and destitution while borders,
difficult geographical conditions and snow are also highlighted.

"Kurdish cinema is trying to open to the world by baring its heart,"
said Yıldızhan.

"Kurdish directors in the diaspora have an interactive relation with
the culture of the country they live in. They are nourished by Kurdish
culture as well as their country [of residence]. This interaction
will make Kurdish cinema richer in the future," he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress