The first film of what has become known as Kurdish cinema, was Zare, and was shot in 1926 in Armenia and directed by Hamo Beknazarian; however, only in the 2000s did Kurdish cinema begin to rise as a recognizable genre.
History
The Kurdish cinema was shaped by the fate of the Kurds as people without a state. Kurdish movies often show social grievances, oppression, torture, human rights violations and life as a stranger. The Kurdish cinema has a high significance for the Kurds, as it offers the opportunity to draw attention in an artistic way to their own situation. However, due to state repression, filming is not an easy matter. So most films are produced in exile. The best example of this is Turkey, where the Kurds were not allowed to speak their mother tongue until 1991; which made the development of Kurdish film difficult. One of the founding father of Kurdish cinema, a figure that is admired by Kurdish Filmmakers today is Yilmaz Güney, despite all restrictions that were forced upon him by the Turkish Government, Güney managed to portray the richness of Kurdish cultures in his films, such as in Sürü and Yol. Yılmaz Güney started making films in the 1950s. For his film Yol - The Road from 1982, he received the Palme d`Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His death in 1984 in Paris meant the end of Kurdish film for a long time, just where he came to international fame. However, in 1991 another Kurdish film called "A Song for Beko" by Nizamettin Ariç from German-Armenian production followed. In 1992, Mem û Zîn followed by director Ümit Elçi from a Turkish production. The film Siyabend and Xecê dates back to 1993 and was also produced in Turkey. The number of film releases is steadily rising u. a. Productions from Iran. Bahman Ghobadi, for example, received the Peace Film Prize for his film at the Berlinale in Berlin for his movie "Tortoises can fly". Over the years Kurdish cinema has symbolized mainly the sufferings of the Kurdish people in the Middle East. Miraz Bezar's movie "Min Dît: The Children of Diyarbakır" won awards at the film festivals in San Sebastian, Hamburg, and Gent. Also it was the first movie at a Turkish film festival in the Kurdish language ever at Golden OrangeFilm Festival in Antalya and won the special prize of the jury. In the last couple of years in Germany and Switzerland film production companies are created by Kurdish filmmakers in exile, who receive public funding from the states they lived in, for example, NEWA Film Berlin or Frame Film GmbH Bern. Yilmaz Güney, Jano Rosebiani, Bahman Qubadi, Shawkat Amin Korky, Mano Khalil, Hisham Zaman, Sahim Omar Kalifa and Yüksel Yavuz are among the better known Kurdish directors. Some Kurdish Filmmakers live and work outside Kurdistan, such as Hiner Saleem.
Films
The following is a list of some better known Kurdish films that are critically acclaimed have the highest rating on IMDB are:
In the past decade, the New Kurdish Documentary Movement has taken shape in all four parts of Kurdistan. Kurdish filmmakers uses documentary films as a tool to educate mainly Western viewers, especially showing their films in Film Festivals and over Social Networking sites to bring attention to the past historical and current evens that has and is taking place in Kurdistan, many of these documentaries are shot in Cinéma vérité styles, with small budget and crews, notable films include:
The film Banaz a Love Story, directed and produced by Deeyah Khan is about Banaz Mahmod, a 20-year-old Kurdish woman from Mitcham, south London, who was killed in 2006, in a murder orchestrated by her father, uncle and cousins. It won the 2013 Emmy award for Best International Current Affairs Film.
