Short films are all too often overlooked in the film world. But we know that their power and impact are just as valuable as those of longer films. This year we are breaking boundaries and are doing something unique: our opening film will consist of five unique short films, each with their own story and charm.
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
20 mins
Year:
2023
Director:
Siavash Vaziri
Producer:
Siavash Vaziri
Country:
Kurdistan (Rojhelat)
Languages:
Kurdish
Subtitles:
English
Synopsis
Shoresh becomes the head of the family while his father is absent and his mentally ill brother is in an asylum. He decides to bring his brother home, much to the displeasure of his sister.
Director
Siavash Vaziri, born in Sanandaj, is a Kurdish film-maker from the Iranian Kurdistan. As early as in his teens, he became a movie enthusiast watching John Ford’s “How Green My Valley Was”. At the age of 16, he joined the Iranian Young Cinema Society (IYCS) in Sanandaj, the same institute where Bahman Ghobadi, the well-known Kurdish film-maker, had started his cinematic activities, to study cinema and directing. Siavash has also studied English and is particularly interested in modern literary works and therefore, has done an extensive reading of 20th century literature. He has taken short-story and screenplay writing courses and has written several screenplays including “Zaam”, which he picked to direct as his first short film.
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
20 mins
Year:
2023
Director:
Siavash Vaziri
Producer:
Siavash Vaziri
Country:
Kurdistan (Rojhelat)
Languages:
Kurdish
Subtitles:
English
Type:
Documentary
Duration:
6 min
Year:
2022
Director:
Rezan Uğurlu
Producer:
Rezan Uğurlu
Country:
Kurdistan (Bakur)
Languages:
Kurdish, Turkish
Subtitles:
English
Synopsis
“REC” is a short documentary by Rezan Uğurlu in which he takes the audience on a journey of what the camera captures when left alone for a moment. The film is also nominated for the best short documentary category.
Director
Rezan Mir Uğurlu was born in 1992. He lived in Nevşehir, Batman, Diyarbakır and Nicosia respectively. Uğurlu, who graduated from the faculty of Law, has been working as a freelance lawyer since 2017. He has three films, Stoppani (2022), REC (2022) and 36 (2023). He currently lives in Istanbul and continues his film work.
Type:
Documentary
Duration:
6 min
Year:
2022
Director:
Rezan Uğurlu
Producer:
Rezan Uğurlu
Country:
Kurdistan (Bakur)
Languages:
Kurdish, Turkish
Subtitles:
English
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
13 mins
Year:
2021
Director:
Cengiz Akaygün
Producer:
Cengiz Akaygün
Country:
Germany
Languages:
Kurdish, Arabic
Subtitles:
English
Synopsis
Aysha (10) and her sister (11) are playing in their full-body veils when their mother quizzes them on the Quran. Aysha isn’t as proficient as her sister and also doesn’t understand the necessity. “AYSHA” is the award-winning short film by Cengiz Akaygün, first screened in the Netherlands.
Director
The director Cengiz Akaygün was born in Stuttgart in 1979 as the son of Kurdish guest workers. He studied Communication and Media Sciences. Later, he began making films, first image films, then also short films. He celebrated great festival success with his short film THE TANGERINE TREE (2018). The 13-minute film AYSHA is his fourth short film.
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
13 mins
Year:
2021
Director:
Cengiz Akaygün
Producer:
Cengiz Akaygün
Country:
Germany
Languages:
Kurdish, Arabic
Subtitles:
English
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
9 mins
Year:
2024
Director:
Fatemeh Bakhshipour and Ali Bahmani
Producer:
Fatemeh Bakhshipour
Country:
Kurdistan (Rojhelat)
Languages:
Kurdish
Subtitles:
English
Synopsis
“KWESTAN,” a short film by Ali Bahmani and Fatemeh Bakhshipour, explores women who are oppressed by their culture and politics and cannot protect their rights for fear of honor killings.
Director
Fatemeh Bakshipour: She is an architect and a graduate of Azad Film Cinema School and the Iranian Youth Cinema Association, and she studied the art of screenwriting professionally under the supervision of Oktay Brahni.
Ali Bahmani: Graphics expert from the University of Culture and Arts and graduated from the Young Cinema Association and Karnameh Cultural and Art Institute and Arad Film School and filming instructor at the Young Cinema Association – learned the art of screenwriting.
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
9 mins
Year:
2024
Director:
Fatemeh Bakhshipour and Ali Bahmani
Producer:
Fatemeh Bakhshipour
Country:
Kurdistan (Rojhelat)
Languages:
Kurdish
Subtitles:
English
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
12 mins
Year:
2022
Director:
Avinar Molaei
Producer:
Alireza Molaei
Country:
Kurdistan (Rojhelat)
Languages:
Kurdish, English
Subtitles:
English
Synopsis
Sura is a musician (Defjen) from East Kurdistan. After seeing the advertisement for the music festival in Erbil, she decides to participate in the festival with her friends, however several social problems seem to be preventing this from happening.
Director
Avinar Molaei, born in 2000, comes from a Kurdish-speaking family in the city of Urmia. She is a student of cinema and television at Isik University in Istanbul and the director of the short film “Sura”, produced in 2022 in Urmia, Iran.
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
12 mins
Year:
2022
Director:
Avinar Molaei
Producer:
Alireza Molaei
Country:
Kurdistan (Rojhelat)
Languages:
Kurdish, English
Subtitles:
English
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
11 mins
Year:
2021
Director:
Musab Tekin
Producer:
Omer Ozbek, Mehmet Ugur Korkmaz, Ozan Caglar, Mehmet Emin Hamzaoglu
Country:
Kurdistan (Bakur)
Languages:
Kurdish, Turkish
Subtitles:
English
Synopsis
B, who has been stuck in a loop loses his perception of time. He believes that, if he travels to Rewşen, he would get out of this cycle. While looking for the minibus in the garage he starts questioning “what Rewşen is”.
Director
Musab Tekin was born in Diyarbakir, Turkey in 1991. He graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Radio TV and Cinema.
Type:
Fiction
Duration:
11 mins
Year:
2021
Director:
Musab Tekin
Producer:
Omer Ozbek, Mehmet Ugur Korkmaz, Ozan Caglar, Mehmet Emin Hamzaoglu
Country:
Kurdistan (Bakur)
Languages:
Kurdish, Turkish
Subtitles:
English
